


Garden of Heroes

by mariacomet



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enchanted Forest, F/F, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-03-12 06:42:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 74,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13541871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariacomet/pseuds/mariacomet
Summary: Regina fought a war against Snow White. Years later, despite Snow’s defeat, she has never stopped fighting it. The people loathe her and she has retreated into the depths of her castle and her collections. Emma was whisked into hiding, saved from the queen's wraith. The people and the nobility await her to fulfill the prophecy and save them. Yet in many ways, she is little more than a pawn.They are destined to battle, the kingdom is at stake and only one of them can win.When they become trapped together in mysterious, deadly caverns, the pair only have one another. Yet can your worst enemy ever be truly trusted?





	1. The Crystal Curse

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Thursday everybody! 
> 
> I missed you guys. Hope all of you had amazing holidays and a fantastic start to the new year. This flight to Swanqueenland takes us to the Enchanted forest and the fantasy genre. I know some of you might be all: ‘ewwwww fantasy’. I get it. But, really this is a story about hope. 
> 
> Also a talking sword-owl.
> 
> No, really.
> 
> As usual, I’ll be posting on Thursdays. 
> 
> Some things to know aka stuff I changed:  
> 1\. The Dark curse doesn’t happen, the Crystal curse does. The story explains all the ins and outs of this. The gist is that instead of being sent to Storybrooke, people in the castle were turned into crystal statues.  
> 2\. The Enchanted forest as written by OUAT showrunners doesn’t have a lot of mythos or history. So, I made some up. It’s meant to give flavour to the world.  
> 3\. Regina never took the potion that prevents her from having children. Why? Cause I said so!  
> 4\. Canon through season 3. I hated the Queens of Darkness arc (though I love the queens).  
> 5\. There are some other small changes (August is a bard) but they shouldn’t throw you too much as they don’t have a huge impact on the plot. 
> 
> My promise to you, as always, is to get you to our destination safely. All the seats on this plane are first class, the virtual drinks are free and endless and all the virtual inflight meals are exactly whatever your favorite dish is. Full service, folks.
> 
> Beyond that you can expect an angry horse, daring escapes, wondrous magic, trickery, hard decisions, a prophecy, true love, charged banter and more. Also, the aforementioned sword-owl.
> 
> Now boarding. This is your captain speaking.
> 
> Btw, I’m mariacomet on Twitter too if you want to say hello!

**Garden of Heroes**

 

Prologue: The Crystal Curse

 

 _The source of all magic, it is said, is the heart and the soul. Once upon a time there was a girl with a heart so strong and so bright, it was believed she could change the world. An evil sorceress, her mother, conspired to use her daughter’s magic for her own nefarious purposes._ _So when that heart was at its brightest, she destroyed the girl’s true love._ _The girl became consumed with punishing all those she blamed for her love’s death. Her heart grew blacker and blacker. When her vengeance was complete, she removed her heart to see if any light was left._ _She wept when she found it completely black._

 

__\-- the Author_ _

 

 

 

Twelve bell towers of rough gray stone were scattered throughout the Whitranni Kingdom. All exactly the same: reaching far into the sky, with a room on the first floor holding a great book on a pedestal — a book of prophecy. A marble marker stood near each pedestal, the design on it the only difference between the towers. One depicted a tree, another a harp, the next a sword, and so on. No one knew who created them, only that they rang in times of great change. Sometimes just one. Sometimes all.

 

The day that Regina lost Daniel, her true love, they rang in unison, the sound of them filling the kingdom. Years later, when the Evil Queen entered the throne room of Snow White and her husband David and cast the Crystal Curse, they rang again.

 

Regina wasn’t certain if she should be comforted by some unknown force marking these moments. She only knew the dark simmering fire inside her, fed by bitterness. It pumped in her veins without respite. She wanted it to stop. She only knew one way: kill the women who had created it.

 

A unit of her elite guard followed her through the courtyard of the Ivory Palace. The lack of resistance gave her pause, but not for long. She strode towards the heavy oak doors to the throne room. She waved her hand and the crack of broken wood sounded just before the doors burst open.

 

Regina’s eyes narrowed. The room was empty except for Snow White, standing near the throne, and twenty or so guards in a defensive position in front of her. The usual sycophants were missing.

 

Snow White wore a silver gown with elaborate stitching of sequinned flowers around the hem. Regina was her dark twin, in black, her brunette hair in a ponytail that swept down and partially covered her exposed bosom. Both women worn crowns. Snow’s was a thick circle of gold rising to seven points, each with a different colored gem at its base. On Regina’s head was a thin band of polished black stone. Atop it rose seven silver spires, each adorned with jagged clear crystal. They slowly changed colors, from transparent to purple, to black.

 

“Not much of a party for your daughter’s first birthday,” Regina said. “No cake. No dwarves. No annoying father. No guest of honor.”

 

Regina’s heels tapped against the marble floor as she advanced. The room filled with the slick sound of swords being unsheathed, from both Snow’s guards and hers. “David and the baby are missing. Find them,” she growled to the men behind her, and half of her group of forty peeled off to search. “Not that it will matter.”

 

Snow moved to stand before her throne, pulled the bow from over her shoulder, and readied an arrow. She didn’t take aim. Not yet. “If you want me, why not come get me. Let it be the way it should be — just you and me.”

 

Regina gave a low laugh. “The days I only wanted your death are gone. I want you to suffer.  I want everything you stole from me. You have been a pestilence and I am going to cure this kingdom of you.”

 

Regina’s fingers curled as if she intended to tear Snow apart with her bare hands. “I told you at your wedding that I would come when you are at your happiest. Let me guess, you’ve had men watching for me, and they told you my army was coming. Your husband spirited away with dear little Emma.” She loved how foolish Snow’s hope had made her. “Did you really think it would be that easy?” She stepped toward those guarding Snow, and they gave ground. She paced in front of them, dress swirling behind her as she moved. “You should have defended this castle with every man, woman and child at your disposal. You should have used catapults, burning oil, and a thousand archers on the walls. Maybe then you would have even the slightest, most improbable chance of victory.”

 

The thrones of the Whitranni Kingdom were on a wide dais seven steps above the main chamber. Behind the throne, a stained glass window portrayed the symbol of Snow’s family — the Gealban bloodline — a shield with four corners, two of them diagonal from one another bearing swans and the two others showing hearts. The walls rose to a high oval ceiling framed by wide beams. Vines of flowers hung from them like loose curtains, red and white flowers blooming here and there. Light streamed in through a dozen tall windows, leaving square after square of shadow and darkness on the floor. It reminded Regina of a chessboard.

 

Snow still tried to reason with her. Even now. “My daughter is just a child. She has no part in this.”

 

Regina smirked and shook her head. “As if children can’t do damage. Especially when they don’t know how or when to keep their promises. Or when a well-meaning fool tries to be kind to them, like when I saved your life, when I trusted you...when I lied about Daniel leaving.”

 

Snow’s face pinched as she tried to understand. She still had so much innocence, could still be surprised. Regina didn’t think she could be. Not anymore. Her never-satisfied, never-content anger always boiling and waiting to be fed.

 

She inched closer with her men, forcing Snow’s defenders to back up again. “My mother wanted me to marry your father. Nothing ever stood in the way of her ambitions. Especially not the man I loved. After your confession, she found us. She tore his heart from his chest and crushed it.” Regina didn’t expect the tears that blurred her vision. The pain should have faded with time.

 

Snow reacted the way any “good person” would. Sorrow burned in her eyes; Regina loathed it. “All this time not knowing when or why you started to hate me.”

 

“I always hated you!” She didn’t mean to shout, didn’t want to be anything but in control, ready to savor her victory.

 

“You know it’s ironic; you were the one who convinced my father I should learn archery.”

 

“I needed you to trust me.”

 

“It worked. I thought you were the person who knew me best. I had no idea that all you had was Cora’s example. And now you’re just like her.”

 

A fireball formed in Regina’s hand, the words making her seethe. Realization caused her to draw a deep breath, banish the fire and smile. “You’re stalling. Nice try.” Regina closed her eyes and touched her crown. Using the crown was painful; it stung her fingers. She didn’t care. “You got everything you ever wanted. A great love.”

 

A black, inky ichor streamed from it down Regina’s body, gathering in a pool at her feet and spreading.

 

Snow stepped forward, weapon still at the ready. Her determined expression was interrupted by tiny flickers of fear. “What is that?”

 

Regina could almost taste the sweetness of it. She didn’t bother answering the question. “Adoring parents attended to your every whim. The people loved you the moment you were born. You had a place made and ready for you.” She felt energy directed at her, and without losing her focus, managed to stop the two arrows Snow shot at her in quick succession. “No, you don’t get what you want this time, my dear. This time,” she smiled, baring her teeth. “I win.”

 

Soldiers on both sides shouted as the thick liquid reached for them, took hold and crept up their bodies. They tried to cut at it with swords or tear it off, only for it to take a tighter hold, paralyzing them.

 

Snow snatched two of her men back, trying to save them. They moved as far back as they could up the stairs and behind the thrones. Her voice rose again, brave despite the wild fear that filled her eyes. “When I told your mother I thought I was helping. I lost my mother. I didn’t want you to lose yours. I wanted you to have…”

 

“You killed him,” the queen’s voice echoed around them and the darkness began to surge from her in waves. “It was you. You murdered him and then you turned this kingdom against me. You convinced them I was a monster.”

 

“You became a monster the day you blamed a child for your pain. You’ve had so many second chances since then, and you wasted every one of them.”

 

“Enough,” Regina pushed more of her magic into the crown, wanting nothing more than to shut Snow up forever. “This is my revenge. You will live forever, as a statue. You will hear all. See all. You will live, but you will not be alive.”

 

The spell had reached Snow and caught hold of her, inching up to her ankle. Snow’s jaw set. “May our love protect you,” she said softly.

 

Regina’s eyes narrowed; a release of magic from Snow made her skin tingle. “What are you doing...”

 

“You always underestimated me.” Snow White tossed down her bow, eyes burning with defiance. She stared out one of the windows. “May our love protect you.” The words were sad but easily heard. Another swell of power rippled from her.

 

The black substance moved faster, out the doors of the throne room and expanding over the castle lands. It hardened over the people it captured. It turned translucent and created perfectly sculpted crystal statues of those it had held.

 

Snow jutted up her chin before it fully transformed her; she placed a hand over her heart, her voice a painful, anguished screech, “May our love protect you.”

 

No one in the room — or the entire castle — was spared from the spell. Snow, the man she loved, those who had helped her, and hopefully the little waif daughter of hers. All dealt with in just a few moments.

 

Regina closed her hand into a fist. All the statues in the room, except Snow, shattered into dust.

 

She touched Snow’s perfect, cool cheek. She had still refused to give in, saying words about love that contained magic, no doubt. Trying to win even though it was hopeless.

 

A mural on the ceiling above showed two ancient sorcesses — the sisters Muirgein and Soras — the mothers of magic. Muirgein, a fair, beautiful woman with straight blonde hair flowing to her feet, curled into the side of a black unicorn. Soras, with smooth brown skin, short reddish hair and an impish smile, leaning on a staff. Eventually they had warred against one another. There was a kind of poetry to them looking down on this moment.

 

Regina narrowed her eyes and concentrated. The statue of Snow transformed, Snow moving to her knees, hands lifted as if to implore Regina for mercy.

 

A dark smile crossed Regina’s lips. “That’s better. I am going to make sure you never forget why I did this, I have designed a new resting place for Daniel, and you, I promise, are a feature.” She patted Snow’s face then turned. “Let’s find that annoying husband and child of yours, shall we?”

 

A sliver of warmth touched her heart, but it wasn’t what she expected. It was not the kind of joy that heralded a new beginning. It hurt. She didn’t understand. Maybe happiness came slowly. Maybe when she knew that Charming and Emma had been dealt with.

 

She hoped.

 

#########################################################

 

_One month later_

 

Before any of the twelve towers rang, the book of prophecy always received a new entry in neat gold script. Sometimes just in one book, if only one bell rang. Sometimes in all, if they all did. Often the words were a prophecy. Other times, simply guidance. They appeared from nothing. No one was ever seen entering the towers. Legend said that they came from the one whom the goddesses had placed in charge of balancing all stories — the author.

 

Before the Evil Queen used the crystal crown, the author gave them a prophecy. It promised death, waiting and hope.

 

The Ivory Castle, once Snow White’s home, now belonged to the queen. People had started to call it, improperly in Regina’s opinion,  the “Crystal Castle.” Of all the statues Regina had created, she’d kept only three: Snow and her husband; and her own father, who she had sacrificed to activate the crown. Everything else remained as it was.

 

For the most part.

 

Nothing had grown at the Ivory Castle since the curse. The plants withered, the shrubs browned, and the trees rotted. Regina tried to stop it, but even after weeks of searching, she found nothing that would help.

 

She considered it good fortune that it only impacted the castle, not the entire kingdom of Whitranni. Now that she was in her rightful place and Snow White had been dealt with, she wanted the land and the people in it to thrive. She wanted to be the benevolent ruler she always knew she could be.

 

Today, especially, she hoped would be a symbol of rebirth.

 

She was holding a great banquet, a gift to her people. Notices were posted in towns and on trees inviting everyone to come and feast — to celebrate a new day. A new beginning.

 

Instead of black, she wore a red velvet gown trimmed with silver. She had a wooden box made for her crown, so it could be close without her wearing it, a symbolic gesture. She wished she could place it in her vault for good, but she felt anxious and itchy whenever she strayed more than ten feet or so from it. It sought her out beyond that distance, appearing on her head as if laying a claim.

 

She exited her bedroom and moved down the hall, pausing by her father’s statue.

 

He stood at the top of a winding staircase that led from the second floor to the main one. She made sure he had fresh flowers in planters around him. Torches kept him brightly lit.

 

“Daddy,” she said softly. “I know it won’t be easy, but I can help this kingdom. I can make up for the past. I just needed _her_ to be gone.” The visits with him were daily but brief. She couldn’t look at him without feeling a sinking guilt. He had been the one she loved most.

 

She touched his cold fingers, as if she could hold his hand. “I’m going to make you proud.” She didn’t let go as she laughed shakily. “I have to admit I’m a little nervous. I wish you could stand beside me.”

 

Sometimes she whispered to her father that she was sorry, unable to keep the words inside. She wondered if one day she could do enough good to make up for what she had done to him.

 

“I’ll tell you all about it later tonight,” she promised him. She squeezed his hand then turned to descend the stairs.

 

She entered the banquet room, even though the festivities wouldn’t begin for another hour. The royal table was at the front of the hall in front of a stone fireplace that stretched to the ceiling. She opened the box on the mantle, putting the crown away.

 

There. A new day.

 

Four long banquet tables that could sit twenty-five people each were placed perpendicular to the table where she would be sitting. Each one draped with a festive gold tablecloth. She’d chosen it as she had the chalices, the forks and knives, and the silver serving platters. She had ordered twenty wooden benches to be brought to the courtyard. She assumed that there would be far more than a hundred people, after all.

 

She turned to one of her servants. “Please tell the Chamberlin everything looks splendid.” He hesitated, as if waiting for some cruel turn. “It’s alright,” she said, her expression soft and understanding. “Go ahead and tell him. There’s no reason for fear. Not now.” She waved him away, and he moved as quickly as he could toward the doors in the back of the room.

 

She took a seat at her table, prepared to welcome them. She practiced smiling — not too wide. Gentle. Warm. Knots tied themselves in her stomach as she waited.

 

And waited.

 

And waited.

 

After some time, Sidney, her chief advisor, entered the room. “May I join you, my…”

 

The hope in her had started to grow cold and sluggish, her ever-present anger eager to take the lead. “Sidney, have you made any progress finding the little waif.”

 

He bowed his head deferentially. “Not as of yet.”

 

“Then don’t you have better things to do? Things that require you to be elsewhere?”

 

He hesitated, laying his hand on the back of the chair next to her. He loved her, or thought he did. Which meant he was trustworthy, at least to a point. He nodded to the room. “I’m sure there’s a reason, Your Majesty. I have heard rumors of heavy rains in the west.”

 

She held up a hand for him to stop talking. “You’re a terrible liar. It’s why I like you. I invite peasants to feast like royalty, and still, they want her.”

 

“Things take time.”

 

“Yes, they do.” She took in a deep breath, bolstering herself. She cradled the dreams inside her. Things _would_ change. “Have the food transported to the nearby villages. If they won’t come here, we will send the feast to them.”

Sidney gave her a small smile and dipped his head low, backing from the room.

 

“Well, I came for a party, but it appears it hasn’t quite started yet.”

 

“Imp,” she growled as Rumpelstiltskin appeared before her. Of course, he would come now.

 

His lips curved up, tightening his scaly cheeks. His hair, scraggly and unkempt, hung in loose curls, one clump falling over his face. “Your Royal Majesty.” He bowed. “Well, you seem a little down, but I suppose, it’s your party and you can cry if you want to.”

 

She gripped the table, but kept her voice relaxed and unconcerned. “When I let you free of Snow’s dungeon, I believe I said I would welcome a plague in this castle more than seeing you ever again. What do you want?”

 

“Perhaps I’m just checking on an old friend. Seeing how things are since you traded my dark curse away to Maleficent for that crown.” He hopped unto the banquet table, stepping over this dish and that. “The crystal curse,” he said as if making a great pronouncement. “Well, it’s alliterative if nothing else. How is life now that your worst enemy has been turned into a statue?”

 

She straightened, her body language every bit that of a queen. “You’re just upset that I got my vengeance without you.”

 

“Well, technically you only got that crown because you traded my curse for it. But, we’ll let that one pass. What really troubles me is...” He dropped to the ground near her. “Ancient, powerful crown. Yet, I’d never heard of it. I —” he pressed his hand to his chest “— who have studied and sought magic for generations”

 

Regina chuckled, dark and lazy. “Oh, how that must hurt your pride. That I found something you couldn’t.”

 

“Hmm.” Rumplestiltskin’s finger traced the air over the mark on her face. “That’s quite a mark from bonding to the crown. Looks like it hurt.”

 

She withdrew, standing and covering the side of her face. “It worked. That’s all I care about.”

 

The black outline of sharp crystals pointed in every direction around her right eye like a macabre blooming flower, extending down the side of her face to just above her mouth. The bonding with the crown had been agony, but she’d die before admitting that to him.

 

“But did it _really_ work? You thought you’d get your vengeance, your heart would be healed and the people would love you.” His words were accompanied by flourishes of his hands, as if he were constantly conjuring things. “That was the point, wasn’t it?

 

Her fury bore down on him through her eyes. So far her heart showed no sign of restoration. She wondered though — was the intention of today’s feast enough to begin changes inside her, even if it hadn’t gone how she wanted?

 

“Don’t be shy, why don’t you show me? I can only imagine how bright your heart is, now that you have turned over a new leaf.” He waited a bit, weathering the attack of her stare. “No?” He touched his chest. “I’m shocked. Astonished. Dumbfounded.” He gave a high pitched giggle, ever playful, ever a showman. “As for the people, they call you the Evil Queen. I’d say that ship…” His hand moved as a fish might through water. “Has sailed.”

She shook her head, tired of his games and the weight of this day. “I surpassed every expectation you ever had of me. I’ll do it again. Now, tell me what you want.” She placed a hand on the small chest where her crown hid. “Or do I need to make a new statue? I think the perfect place for you would be overlooking one of the local farm’s dung heaps.”

 

“No need to get testy,” he said, a large grin spreading over his face. “A deal, My Queen. Same as always. I’ve been looking into that crown on yours. You’ve discovered its three powers, but what about how to destroy it?”

 

She gave a mocking laugh. “What interest would I ever have in destroying it?”

 

“I didn’t say _you_ would want to.” He said, circling her table. “Your enemies will. Charming and Snow’s child is still out there, and there’s the little matter of the prophecy.”

 

She kept her back to him, a show of nonchalance. “I have thousands hunting for her. It’s only a matter of time. That reminds me, somehow she escaped my curse. Snow cast some sort of spell. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

 

“I prefer to keep most deals confidential. Need to know only. Now, our deal.” He rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Knowledge of how to destroy the crown for...a single, tiny drop of your blood.”

 

The queen snorted. “That doesn’t at all seem suspicious.”

 

He sat down a few chairs away from her, propped his boots on the royal table and picked up an apple. “With that crown, you can undoubtedly defeat anything. Yet the prophecy says you die. How could that be, I wonder.”

 

“Prophecies aren’t assured.”

 

He tossed the apple up and caught it. “But they’re powerful.”

 

She lowered her gaze and thought of her father. “What will you do with my blood?”

 

“Have you forgotten everything I taught you?” His voice mocked her and jabbed at her pride. “Any number of things. That’s why blood is so useful. Do we have a deal or not?”

 

She needed to know, he was right about that. Regina clenched her jaw. “Fine.”

 

“Your hand, please, Majesty?”

 

Rumplestiltskin produced a pin from nowhere and pricked her finger without care. He gathered a drop of her blood into a vial, held it up to the light and smiled.

 

He looked too pleased for Regina’s taste. “Well,” she snapped at him.

 

He walked a few steps away from her then back, taking his time. “The crown can only be destroyed by the one bonded to it. And then, in that moment, any magic they ever cast will be undone.”

 

She couldn’t help but smile, relief mixing with confidence inside her. “So I’m the only one who can break it? That’s never going to happen.”

 

He wagged a finger at her. “I’m not done, dearie. The owner must break it with their own hands, but the intensity of releasing the bond will kill them. Break your heart right in two. I know what you’re thinking — that you’re safe.” He took a bite of the apple in his hand. “But there’s the child. She’s going to come here one day.” He tossed the fruit into the fire. “You don’t where your friend Maleficent has gone, do you? I stopped by and there was no sign of anyone. I have a few questions about where she acquired the crown. I’m curious.”

 

Regina smirked. “Well, well, something else you don’t know? Maybe you’re losing your touch. Sorry, I can’t help you.” Maleficent was the closest thing to a friend she had; that she was gone was news. Perhaps she’d visit Maleficent’s home for herself or have her spies make inquiries.

 

“Do let her know I’m looking for her if you happen to see her. Nice chatting as always, My Queen.” He lifted a hand, twirling it, and disappeared in a puff of green smoke.

 

Regina sunk into a chair and reflexively rubbed at the markings on her face. Rumplestiltskin played games. Sometimes for his own amusement, but most often to find weaknesses, to pry people open and look into their pain. Facing him required all of her defenses. Especially today, when her attempt to reach out to her people had been so soundly rejected.

 

Still, she had tried to do a good thing. The first attempt in a very long time. She lay her palm against her chest, wondering. Her heart pounded a little faster. She gathered her courage, her breath stuttering from her. She plunged her hand into her chest and her heart contracted hard. It hurt like the strain of holding a breath for too long. It took tremendous focus to pull it free.

 

Her eyes were closed. All of the maybes played in her head, and only when they settled did she find enough bravery to look.

 

Black. Completely black.

 

##########################################################################

 

Six months later, she tried again to offer her hand to the people. An illness ravaged the land. She worked for days to develop a cure. She offered the potion to anyone who needed it.

 

No one came. Instead, they accused her of creating the sickness. She checked her heart. It was the same.

 

A year later she opened her castle during one of the most bitter winter nights the kingdom had ever seen. She inspected her heart again. No change. The people blamed the winter on her.

 

She built a school meant to educate the peasantry. The peopled burned it to the ground. Her heart remained black as coal.

 

They raised an army to overthrow her. She used the magic of her crown to turn them into perfect crystal statues.

 

After, she smashed all of them into dust.

 

After, she stopped looking at her heart.

 

After, she no longer visited her father’s statue.

 

After, she began her collections, beginning with the garden.

  



	2. Of Sword-owls and Mirrors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday Everyone,  
> On your flight today, expect sword-owls. Sword-owls! 
> 
> Also, many of you might be aware that this is OUAT's last season. My wife and I watched the show regularly for the first three seasons and then fell away from it. But, I remember that as part of watching we had some amazing discussions about the nature of evil, parents and their influence over children, forgiveness, etc. And, we were introduced to Lana Parilla who we'd never heard of before. For the latter, especially, I am extremely grateful.
> 
> I am old enough to remember the impact of another show: Xena. For those who don't know, Xena was one of the first shows that generated huge amounts of fanfic. It was also one of the first shows that gave lesbians an opportunity to band together and form a community. A lot of LGBTQ book writers and publishing houses came directly out of the love and passion that show inspired. Swanqueen fans are equally passionate and our community is larger. It's global. Where we take that, what we do with it, how it influences the future; is up to us. 
> 
> This is your captain speaking.

**Garden**   **of Heroes**  

 Chapter 1: Of Sword-Owls and Mirrors  

  

 _She who was born of stone heart will lay down her head._  

 _She who darkened her heart will be confronted by light._  

 _The hero who refuses to yield will seek forgotten doors of knowledge._  

 _She will be twenty-eight when she says, “So shall it be.”_  

 _The queen will scream her defiance and surrender._  

 _Through death will there be renewal in Ivory halls._  

 _They will wonder then at the power of hope._  

 

  * _The Prophecy of the Crystal Curse, as written by the Author_  



 

 

On Emma’s sixth birthday, several strangers came to the Wolfe’s Heart Tavern, where she lived with Granny. They brought gifts, which might have been weird since they didn’t know her, but a lot of people sent her presents for her birthday. They did it to show respect to her and her parents, Granny told her. She knew the visitors must be important because Granny and Grumpy made her put on a dress. They knew she hated wearing them. She made sure to say, “Pleased to meet you” and curtsey, which was the height of manners, as far as she knew. 

 

The strangers stayed for the reading of her mother’s letter. Granny always gathered everyone around and read a letter out loud on her birthday. There were twenty-eight of them in all, and Granny read a new one each year. Grumpy put an arm around her as they listened. Her father, David, should have been there with them. He tried to be, but the queen’s curse got him. Her father had trusted Grumpy to save her.  

 

This time her mother said things like, “Do what your father and the other adults say — most of the time. But sometimes, do things you are a little scared of. Remember to never give up on the people you love. No one is perfect.” Grumpy wiped at his eyes roughly, then excused himself. Thinking of Emma’s parents often made him sad.  

 

The letters always ended the same way: “I am with you and I love you with all of my heart.”  

 

People around her reacted with smiles and tears. Emma didn’t know what to think about that.  

 

Afterward there was cake, then gifts were opened. Mostly, she received clothes or toys.  

 

This time, though, one of the gifts from the strangers was a sword. Granny said she couldn’t take it to her room because it was too “grown-up” for her, but she snuck off with it when Granny was distracted serving customers. She sat behind her bed and unsheathed it.  

She ran her small fingers over the etchings on the blade. 

 

Suddenly the sword shrank and turned into a small owl-like creature no bigger than a mouse. He had a round, flat face and big, blue eyes. Yet his nose and beak protruded more like the curved beak of a sparrow. Also, regular owls didn’t have small bunny ears on the top of their heads, one of them partially folded over. 

 

“ _What...you activated me.”_ She heard the words in her head but not in her own voice. The owl jumped from her hand and flew around her head.  _“Oh my, that felt good.”_  When he spoke it made her head buzz a little. He dove sharply toward the ground then swooped back up.  _“Very good,”_  he said enthusiastically.  

 

She had not expected the sword to hide an owl. Emma got to her feet as quickly as she could, head swiveling to follow him as he flew. Other people might be scared but not her. Not ever. Once she’d heard people talking about it and how it made them worry about her, and that she was too solemn for a child. She didn’t know what that meant.  

 

He took one more pass around the room, then landed on her shoulder. “ _My, but that is fun._   _Hello there,_ ” he said and bowed. His words in her mind seemed warm, like cocoa or putting cold feet by the fire. “ _I am_ _Tazmaran_ _Stolio_ _. Or was. Possibly still am. It’s difficult to say after you’ve been changed from one thing to an entirely different thing. Semantics, I suppose. I used to be one of the greatest wizards in all the kingdoms.”_  

 

 “You’re not a sword?” Emma asked, frowning. His white feathers with patches of gray were soft against her neck.  

 

 _“I am now; I wasn’t always. Let’s say I associated with the wrong type of people, but they were similar to me, so, at the time, they seemed like the right type of people. Make sense?”_  

 

She was still thinking about that, but she nodded anyway.  

 

“ _Tazmaran_ _might be a bit of a tongue twister at your age. You can call me_ _Taz_ _._ ” The voice in her head was cheerful. “ _Now, I have been locked away in an armory for many years. Have you ever been locked in an armory?”_  

 

She shook her head because she wasn’t sure what that was.  

 

 _“Dreary places. I am very happy to meet you. That reminds me, you should tell me your name. I can’t very well call you ‘hey you_ _’._ _For one thing, there are a lot of_ _yous_ _in the world.”_  

 

“I’m Emma.” 

 

Taz extended a wing.  _“Pleased to meet you, Emma.”_  

 

She shook it with her forefinger and thumb, deciding she needed to be careful with him since he was so small. 

 

 _“I overheard you’re a savior. You seem a bit young for one, but, I am at your service and promise to assist you in your quest to save…Well, whatever it is you are supposed to save. Listen to me going on and on, not letting you get a word in edgewise. Ha! Edgewise, because I’m a sword.”_  

 

“You’re an owl,” Emma said distrustfully.  

 

 _“You seem confused.”_ He cleared his throat. This time when he spoke, he did it out loud. “How much do you know about magical items? Probably not much, am I right? I was — for lack of a better term — partly asleep. You woke me. The real term is ‘activated.’” 

 

She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” Grumpy didn’t like it when she woke him up too early. Neither did August or Ruby, but everyone slept too long in her opinion. There were lots of things to do and she wasn’t allowed to be outside after dark. 

 

“Your hand, please.” She lifted it, palm up, and he jumped down to it. “Perhaps prison is a better comparison than sleep. For a long time I was just a sword, and all I could do was watch and wait. Magic items are very specific. They can only be activated in a certain way, they bond to their wielders in their own unique way, they have powers specific to each one, and also there is one defined way each item can be destroyed.” 

 

Emma knew the last word. She was supposed to do that to the curse. “I could break you?” She used her fingertip to carefully rub his head. “I’ll be careful.” 

 

Emma didn’t think he smiled exactly, but the corners of his eyes squinted. “I am sure you will. Anyway, you’d have to know how. Again, all very specific.” His pointed ears went straight up. “You don’t happen to play music, do you?” 

 

She couldn’t, but didn’t want him to think she didn’t know how to do important things. “I can climb stuff. I can climb trees, but it’s dark.” 

 

“Then tomorrow we will climb trees.” Emma nodded, liking the idea immediately. “I’ll tell you a secret, Emma. It shames me, but I never want to lie to you. I used to be, well, not very nice. In life there are right and wrong ways to use time. I kept choosing the wrong ways. Then, after I was turned into a sword — again, long story — a blacksmith found me. He hung me on a wall. From there I watched in silence as his children grew and had their own children. Something changed inside me. I regretted all the good I had never done.”  

 

She liked that he trusted her with his secret. She had one, too. “Taz, can you keep a secret?” 

 

“I can. Even should someone threaten to melt me down and turn me into a chamber pot.” 

 

“And you’re my sword-owl?” 

 

“I am.” 

 

“There’s…” She sat down heavily on her bed. “I’m wrong.” 

 

When she had told him all of the rest, he said, “Emma, people who are just a little bit off are the best sort of people. They see the world in extraordinary ways. Come here.” He gave her a peck on the top of her head.  

 

A connection stretched between them like a bright cord, a bond.  

 

When she told Granny her sword was really an owl, Granny took him to the tavern kitchen and they talked for a long time. When she gave Taz back, she said, “Both of you stay out of trouble,” which Emma thought meant she could keep him.  

 

Taz preferred to be in his owl form. Granny made him a bed from a small sack filled with feathers, and he slept next to Emma’s pillow. Taz read her stories at night, or sometimes he told her about his life before he’d been cursed. He ate when she did. Grumpy made him a tiny wooden bowl and Emma carried it with her in her belt pouch so she could share things with him. Taz liked seeing and trying new things, especially food.  

 

He had many questions about what had happened while he’d been just a sword. He caught bits and pieces from all the watching he’d done, he wanted to fill in what he didn’t understand. Emma asked Grumpy to get her a history book as a late birthday present, and he eyed Taz suspiciously, but got her one all the same.  

 

Sometimes he called her "Little Bit" because he said she shouldn’t worry about being a little bit different.  

 

When he was a sword, there were three symbols engraved on the blade, clues to what his powers were. The first was clear enough: wide round eyes and a feather. The second was a starburst with little lines depicting streaks like air. The last was another kind of bird carved in sharp angles. Its wings formed a circle over its head, and it looked like it was on fire.  

 

Taz refused to reveal what the last two meant, since it would deprive her of the adventure of figuring it out on her own.  

 

When she was eight, a bard staying at the tavern sang a song she knew was about her. 

 

“ _She will bring us back the days of old_  

 _Bring death to the queen forever more._  

 _Break the curse and revive the throne_  

 _Kill the queen and restore our homes.”_  

 

Grumpy and Granny cast worried looks towards Emma. After that when bards came to the tavern, they didn’t sing about her. Emma didn’t understand why they tried to hide things like that. Everyone knew that was what she was supposed to do when she grew up.  

 

By then she’d started to learn to smile at the right times, or laugh, or act sad. Taz would sometimes remind her when she forgot.  

 

As she grew, she and he played “Snow and the Evil Queen” (Taz made an excellent queen), and they invented battles that neither bards nor books spoke of, but that they were sure happened. At least until she too old to play games.  

 

By seventeen, she'd learned how to be an engaging leader despite her condition. Over the years, she'd perfected the guise of a ready grin and twinkling eyes. She'd learned people liked to be listened to and encouraged, and that they liked to feel important. Projecting confidence too, was very important. 

 

By that age, she'd also figured out what Taz’s star symbol meant: speed. She could move very, very fast when she wanted to, as long as she was touching him.  

 

During that year, she also found the right words to explain to Taz what was really wrong with her. "I can feel physical things, but inside something is missing; it's just still. Like I’m on one side of a gap and my heart is on the other and I can’t get to it...A ‘stone heart’ like the prophecy says. People think it’s a figure of speech. It’s not. It’s me. My mom's letters. She talks about all these feelings. I want to understand, but I don't. I can't." 

 

Taz's eyes were full of grief. “Come here, Little Bit,” he said and nibbled the top of her head.  

 

When she and Taz were alone, she didn’t talk a lot. She thought about who the people expected her to be. And she wondered if she could ever be what they needed when she lacked so much. 

 

################################## 

 

 

Regina laid a white rose on Daniel’s casket. 

 

His final resting place was an alcove of white marble at the top of the great staircase. Behind him, at the back of the half-circle pushed deep into the wall, Snow White stood on a pedestal four feet high. Her old nemesis forced to overlook the queen’s true love and the room where Regina conducted the kingdom’s business.  

 

She called the room her “garden.” It had once been Snow’s throne room, but Regina had taken great care to renovate it, and now it was her favorite room. It was her throne room and banquet room, but she also used it to receive visitors and often simply to take afternoon tea.  

 

Four marble columns lined each side of the hall, each one with a hero positioned before it. She had kept the tall windows; the light they offered was cheerful and bright, casting the shadows of her collection during the day. Regina liked the contrast.  

 

Five years after the curse, she offered a reward to anyone who captured a hero worthy of her garden. From every corner of all the kingdoms, they were brought to her: a street rat; a large lion, shaved of his mane; a dying king with a powerful sword; an outlaw dressed in green, smelling of the forest; a lovely, ancient animal with the torso, arms and head of a woman over the body of a horse; an odd-looking man in a long purple coat and top hat, a cheerful expression in his eyes no matter what Regina tried; a tall woman with long, dark hair, holding a round metal disk in her hand; and a young girl in ruby slippers. 

   

“Well, sweet Snow,” Regina said, pausing before she descended into the ‘garden’. “I hear your husband and his new family are doing quite well. Four grandchildren now. Can you imagine?” 

 

She had lost count of the fictions she had told Snow: Charming happily remarried or dead in her dungeon. Or she took his heart and used his body before killing him. Sometimes she also mentioned the little waif: that Emma had died of an illness or was a slave to a king in a foreign land, or that a spell had been cast on her so that she would always be alone and hunted. 

 

There had been so many stories that Snow likely didn’t believe her anymore.  

 

The other challenge was, despite the fact that her crown gave her the power to manipulate the stances of her statues, there were only so many poses. She’d used the crown to have Snow kneel, hold her head in her hands as if sobbing, or lay down as if stabbed.  

 

Tormenting Snow never brought her the enjoyment she hoped it would. After she won, her world felt brighter but not as much as she’d expected it to. That hard-won light faded in less than a year. Destroying Snow was supposed to change her back to the way she had been so long ago. The constant misery that wrung her heart dry of all else should be gone. It wasn’t. 

 

But maybe today that would change.  

 

As she walked down the stairs, she touched her crown and made all of the statues in her garden kneel. She frowned; it wasn’t very inventive.  

 

Still, searching for more heroes gave her a certain satisfaction. As did her second, but just as important collection: magical items. She was expecting a new addition that very morning, and just thinking of this specific prize made her giddy. She could barely focus on the book she had brought to occupy her as she waited.  

 

“Majesty,” Sidney called, boots tapping against the floor as he moved quickly towards her. Behind him two servants carried a large ornate mirror set in a frame of old, light gray wood. “I present the Mirror of Muirgein,” he said grandly. “I was able to find out how to activate it. I am not sure what the bonding process is or what powers…” 

 

She glanced at him with disdain. “Do you think I asked you to find this specific mirror without knowing its powers? This mirror will do what you have been unable to.” She gave a triumphant smile. “Help me find that horrid little waif once and for all.”  

 

Her powers did not extend to other kingdoms, and the White Swan and her group of rebels strayed back and forth over the border through the Moon Forest.  

 

Regina stood, lifting the hem of her dress with her hand as she approached the mirror. It did not show her reflection, only churning, smoky gray circles. She hadn’t expected that and her brows furrowed.  

 

“You need to look into the mirror and say the old sorceress’ name,” Sidney told her. 

 

“Really? Let’s hope its powers are more impressive than what is needed to activate it.” She stared into the mirror, hands on her hips. “Muirgein.” 

 

The gray in the mirror dispersed to the edges near the frame as her reflection appeared. “You are Queen Regina,” said a soft, male voice.  

 

“Oh, you’re one that talks,” Regina said, mouth twisting in disapproval. “The books didn’t mention that. I supposed it can’t be helped. My books say I bond with you by reading the legend of the two sisters?” 

 

“Reading or simply telling,” the mirror said. 

 

“And you can show me things in the present and the future, correct?” 

 

“I can.”  

 

Regine rolled her eyes heavenward. “Once there were two sisters, the first ones bestowed with magic by the goddesses, Muirgein and Soras.” She spoke quickly and without emotion, wanting to get this over with. “Soras was younger and eventually found true love, but Muirgein cared only for learning more magic. They were charged by the goddesses to spread their magic. Once a year they placed a little of it into the Waterfall of the Divine and some who drank that water developed powers. Muirgein began to imprison the most powerful of them. She drained them of their magic and created dark, horrible creatures.” Her gaze fell on the statue of the lion, the story striking an unexpected note in her. She refused to linger. 

 

“Soras, realizing how lost her sister had become, confronted her. They battled. Muirgein mortally wounded Soras, but she fled into the nearby mountains, using the last of her magics to carve miles and miles of caverns. When Muirgein found her, ready to finish what she began, she discovered her sister was with child. In that moment, Murigein grew horrified by what she had become.” She thought of Snow and shook her head at herself. “No resolve, I suppose.” 

 

“Unable to save her sister, she tried to save the baby, but the child had been wounded in the battle and Muirgein didn’t know how to heal her. She placed her in a tree and ordered her dark creations to guard the baby until she found a cure. She was never seen again.” 

 

“Thank you,” the mirror said, a deep satisfaction in his voice. The smoke in the mirror drifted free of its confines and surrounded Regina. She expected pain and braced her body for it, but instead felt only a faint tingle on her brow.  

 

“Is that...is that it? Are we bonded?” 

 

“Yes. You expected pain?” 

 

Anger slithered inside her, curling up warm and snug. “I expected you to talk less,” she said. “Now, mirror. Show me the White Swan.”  

 

The mirror paused, the tightening swirls of gray continuously moving.  

 

Regina didn’t have a tremendous amount of patience on the best of days, but she held her tongue for much longer than she usually would have. “Well,” she said. “Where is she?” 

 

“I cannot do as you ask. She is shielded from magic.” 

 

“No,” she said slowly. “No, that can’t be.” She slapped her palm against the glass. “I have been searching for her for seventeen years." She shook the frame. "You are supposed to see all.”  

 

“All magic has limits.” 

 

Sidney stepped toward her to offer comfort, and she felt the impulse to turn his heart to dust in her palm. “Get out,” she screamed and charged after him and the others. After they fled, she returned to the mirror, turmoil and fury in her eyes. “You show me where she is, or I will break you into little…” 

 

“If that will make you happy, My Queen. Though, know that I would reform on the morrow.” 

 

She covered her eyes, as if seeing it now would drive her mad. “I just want to be happy. I want this to be over.” The tattoo around her eye from bonding with the crown started to sting as if the denial of her happiness had been a physical blow. Some days the tattoo pained her. She saw no rhyme or reason to it, and right now, as it faded, she wondered if she had truly felt it at all. She sank into her chair, fingers pressed to her temples. “My collections. Could you at least help with those?” she asked, her voice and demeanor lifeless.  

  

“I can. I could scour the lands for items or heroes. But, you wish to be happy. I can tell you that you will be, My Queen. Better, I can show you.” 

 

She laughed, a harsh sound. “What are you talking about?” 

 

The mirror’s smoky depths changed. “Watch.” 

 

She expected to see something she could dismiss. Perhaps a lie about how she would win everything she wanted. She didn’t expect to see herself in the glass, a baby in her arms, her eyes shining with light as she smiled down at him.  

 

 _“Decorum, my little prince, this is a very serious day. Today you meet the entire kingdom,”_ her reflection said. He giggled as she nuzzled his face, which made her smile broad and bright. 

 

Regina rose. “What is this?” 

 

“The future. Your son.”  

 

In the glass, the baby didn’t stop smiling at her. _“Very well, Henry, I suppose we can give decorum a rest.”_ The way she said his name contained so much of her, and suggested she would give him even more. Give him everything.  

 

Regina couldn’t help moving closer to the image. “Is it real? Is  _he_ real?” 

 

“There are many paths you could travel, an infinite amount, but most of them lead to this.” 

 

“I look…” She could not find the words to explain how rarely she had ever felt joy and how seeing it almost felt as if she were watching a stranger, someone with another face. “It can’t be,” she said, but touched the mirror reverently. 

 

 

############################## 

 

The year Emma turned twenty-three, Granny died, and everything changed.  

 

On the day of her funeral the two large rooms of the Wolfe's Heart tavern were filled to the brim with people. The long banquet-style tables in the back room were so crowded with plates and platters that many hung precariously over the edges. This outpouring continued for days.  

 

Those who hadn't known Granny well stayed in the front part of the tavern where there were eight small, round tables, stools and the stained, discolored bar. Those who considered her an adviser, a close friend, or even a mother went through the large square archway to the left. This room was meant for feasts and larger gatherings. Along with the longer tables and benches, there was a small stage for bards. And  _their_  table too, in one corner of the room far enough from everything else to give them some privacy.  

 

The chairs at their table were different: five side chairs with thick layers of fur stretched over the back, cushions made similarly and stuffed with wool. A place forever reserved for her three unofficial children — Grumpy, Emma and August — and her granddaughter, Ruby. Regardless of where they'd originally come from, the tavern became the truest home they'd ever known.  

 

Now, several years after Granny's passing, all of them briefly stiffened as a merchant named Barnes took Granny's chair, the one that was just a bit taller than the others (which she insisted was accidental). They didn't gather together as much as they once had. Maybe they had never really gotten used to it being empty, much less occupied by someone else.  

 

Barnes seemed eager to share the reason he came, and they were just as eager to hear, given the promise of a job. 

 

Granny had been the one who kept the rebels organized. She maintained close contact with the Whitranni nobles and the towns in their fiefs. She planned raids on caravans to both embarrass the queen and gain coin to fund a militia. She kept them focused. 

 

Those she left behind simply weren't as talented as she was. Their attacks on the queen's goods had dwindled, as had acts of simple insurrection. Emma tried for months to revive their unity and transform their lackluster spirit. In the end, she didn't know how. A deficit she traced back to whatever was broken in her heart.  

 

"I have an unusual request to manage a problem that is growing with every passing day," Barnes said. Emma shifted her attention back to the conversation. Barnes had short, sandy brown hair and a sharply-pointed beard. Like most merchants, he wore a gold sash draped from one shoulder across his chest with a symbol depicting his trade, a butcher's knife. "You may be aware of the new trade routes we have discovered to the East. And spices are the import most in demand." 

 

The friends exchanged glances, their expressions not blank but far from full.  

 

"All who can afford to have begun to invest in the trade," Barnes continued. "But there are merchants who are trying to strangle others from the market. They bribe ship captains to carry only their cargo. They have formed guilds that require large sums of coin if you wish to become a member. They are petitioning individual fief lords to insist only guild members should be allowed to trade spices." 

 

"All this sounds like a merchant dispute," August said, a crease on his forehead. "You should be going to the fief lords. They should hold a council." 

 

The words only made Barnes even more somber. "Many merchants have requested it. The fief lords have expressed no desire to do such a thing. Which is why I have come to you." He leaned forward, directing his words to Emma. "A message must be sent that such unethical practices will not be tolerated. That you and those who follow you will stand against them. Our hope is that this will draw attention to the need for action from the fief lords. One of the worst offenders will be passing through the Moon Forest in a few days. I ask that you steal his goods, and if you do this, I and those I represent will reward you handsomely." 

  

Emma was the first to break the silence and admit the uncertainty of the situation. "That's...we focus more on fighting the queen." Taz could have probably helped her say it better, but he was upstairs resting after one too many lemon cakes. "The stuff we do, like, we have stolen the goods from at least twenty of her caravans.”  

 

“Twenty-three,” Ruby said. She knew the numbers better than the others ever would. She rose, going to the bar and returning with a pitcher to refill their mugs. She was elegant in red and white, hair flowing in long ringlets to just above her hips. Ruby used to be wilder, but as she grew closer and more at peace with the wolf inside her, she had come into a quiet dignity. Since Granny had died she had taken over the role of respectable tavern owner. 

 

Emma continued, not wanting to lose her momentum. "We’ve hung banners in all twelve bell towers denouncing her. We fought off three separate attempts to capture or kill us. And we stole the queen’s horse.” 

 

August’s smile was crooked, one side of his mouth always raising higher than the other. “What  _is_  our plan for that horse?” 

 

Emma waved that away. “Look, it seemed like a good idea at the time. My point is, Barnes, what you want isn't what we do. It doesn't undermine the queen or directly help the rebels." 

 

"You help the people." His argument was spoken firmly. 

 

"This merchant is 'the people'," Emma said. "Look, it's not that I don't want to help. What if I, I don't know, tried to talk to him?" 

 

"This man and those like him make many elans on every ship load of spice. They will not cease their greed just because someone asks, not even if it's you." Elans were the largest unit of coin in the Whitranni kingdom, and Emma had to admit, if they were profiting that much, talk likely wouldn't help.  

 

"This is also to your benefit," Barnes said. "Your influence and that of the rebels has waned in recent years. This will remind everyone who you are and that you are here to help." 

 

Emma didn't like the whole proposal for a dozen reasons, but those last words had enough truth to make her hesitate. "Can you give us a moment?"   

  

Ruby smiled at him gently. "Why don't you warm yourself by the fire?"  He inclined his head to her and took his leave to the main room. Emma measured the expressions of the others. 

 

"The last time the rebels did anything was six months ago," Ruby said. "We sent word to five towns asking for volunteers, and only twenty people showed up." It was a glum topic and they all sagged a little after she mentioned it.  

 

“Barnes and the others are probably just angry they didn't think of the guild first." Grumpy's face was stark with disapproval. Time had added wrinkles and ruddiness to his face and spectacles to his eyes. His beard had turned white and thick and now hung to the middle of his chest.  

 

August's eyes narrowed slightly, troubled. "But, he's not wrong. Spice is flooding the Whitranni Kingdom with coin like never before. Letting that go on with no governance invites people to act on their worst instincts. Who knows where that could lead?" He sighed before he spoke again. "Also, I used to get requests for songs about the lost princess every place I went. Not anymore. We've been trying to keep people believing in Emma's return for over twenty years. That's a very long time." 

 

Out of all of them, Emma thought he’d changed the least over time. He wore more colorful clothes now, a hallmark of his trade as a bard. Today it was a three-button, double-breasted, blood-red vest and a matching long coat over a blue tunic. August travelled a lot, spreading tales about the Savior. He’d even made the prophecy into a song. 

 

"Since Granny died..."  Ruby began, voice heavy. They knew what she was thinking, how badly they'd borne that torch, how weak the flame had become. "Emma comes of age in two years. We make sure the people are on our side. None of us thinks this is the perfect job. But we could do some good, and maybe it's a chance to get ourselves organized again." 

 

The first time they celebrated Emma's birthday after Granny's death, no one mentioned the letters from Snow White that Granny used to read. After that, they were forgotten and Emma, left to her own devices, didn't open them. There was too much in the letters she couldn't be, had never been. Even if she'd succeeded in keeping it a secret from everyone except Taz, it was still true.  

 

"I'm not sure we're going to get much help to pull this off." August toyed with his tankard, tilting it up then letting gravity pull it down. "Caravan like that, wouldn't be strange for it to be guarded by...what...twenty guards.   
 

"Probably thirty." Since Ruby was the one who knew the counts of things, they trusted her. "Bad odds." 

 

"Maybe that's good," Emma said. 

 

Grumpy's head snapped in her direction. "What?" he asked, voice higher than usual. 

 

Over time, "What ifs" had piled on Emma like endless snow in the depths of winter. What if what was wrong with her meant she wasn't really the savior? What if the prophecy was about someone else? How could she be sure it really meant her?  

 

"Maybe we've played it too safe," she said. "We relied on numbers or having an inside man or woman. And most of what we've done was to make sure that one day, when the prophecy says it's time, we have an army and support. Maybe we need to show them we can take risks. We can win when the odds are against us. We can make a difference right now. That they're right to believe in us." 

 

Inside she was buried by the questions. Stuck under their weight. She had always expected something to give, for answers to eventually dig her free. None came. She wondered now, could she demand those answers? Could she force the world or whatever controlled her fate to give her proof? 

 

Emma pushed a smile to her lips. "Couldn't be any harder than stealing the horse, right?" 

 

Later when she told Taz about the mission, he hopped excitedly from her shoulder to the top of her bed and back. "Finally, another adventure. We shall swoop in on these nefarious, gold-obsessed vultures. And the people will say that the White Swan is not afraid to steal from those who are already stealing." He blinked a few times. "Hm, I'll work on that." 

 

"You know," Emma said slyly. "If you really want to help, you could tell me what the third symbol means." 

 

"By not telling you, I am helping. A good mystery builds the pathways of the mind." 

 

In the end, they chose their spot on the road through the Moon Forest and chopped at tree trunks till they were about to fall. Old oaks crashed to the road at the right moment to block the main carts from their guards. After they succeeded, they returned to their table, hoisting ale and making toasts: "To Granny!" "To us!" 

 

In response to the theft, the fief lords did meet. They created a compact establishing an official guild of the spice trade across all the fiefdoms. They set a high membership price and only those able to pay it could participate in the trade. They also sent Emma an invitation to appear before them. 

 

When she arrived at a large barn on the outskirts of the town of Ablan, they chastised her. They spoke of "unified action" and the need to ask their counsel before she acted. They explained that interrupting the finances of the kingdom could cause the people and her allies to turn against her.  

 

As she left them, Grumpy  shook his head in disgust and lay a hand on her back. "Heads up their asses, kid." 

 

Taz sat on Emma's shoulder, wings crossed over his chest. "Aptly put." 

 

A new questioned occurred to her. She was wrong, and maybe that meant she could have never been the savior of legend. But, was that really what anyone wanted? The nobles desired a symbol they could use as a rallying point for whatever served the moment. As for the people, they were complicit in their own suffering. Made lazy by their desire for easy answers, they waited for her and hated the queen. Restore your parents, they seemed to think, so they can solve our problems and we don't have to. 

 

Was that what they expected? Is that why her parents paid so high a cost to save her? 

 

Emma stopped walking and said to them, "I don't think I want to do this anymore." 


	3. Of Potions and Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday Everyone,  
> On today's flight, we're still rising to cruising altitude, which really becomes a factor next chapter. Emma and Taz fight a horrible, horrible beast and Rumple makes an appearance.  
> And then next chapter there's the much awaited meeting. 
> 
> When I chose to do fantasy I was (am) super nervous, so I want to thank everyone for their comments and support.
> 
> Hope you all are liking some of the twists and turns of this world.
> 
> This is your captain speaking.

 

 _...don’t think you always need to know exactly what to do. Your heart, if you open it, will guide you most of the time. When it doesn’t, turn to the people you trust the most. And even if you make a mistake, have faith. My father used to say,_ _“an honest mistake plants good seeds.”_ _If you make a not-so-honest mistake, know that I made many of those too._  

 

 _The key is not giving up. Not on those around you and never on yourself. No matter what happens, don’t give up. Somewhere inside you, allow the belief that anything is possible._  

 

 _My dear daughter, I am with you and I love you with all of my heart._  

 

  *   Excerpt of a letter from Snow White Gealban to her daughter. 



 

 

The Moon Forest stretched for a hundred miles between the Whitranni kingdom, which Emma’s parents had ruled, and the remnants of the Zenvum empire, which had once ruled almost everything. The Gealban family, Snow White’s family line, led a war against the Zenvum generations ago, eventually chasing them south.   

  

Now, they were separated by miles of unclaimed land with a few villages, the Caverns of Soras, the Blackheart Mountains, and of course, the forest.  

  

The Moon Forest was dark, but bathed in a mysterious silvery light, as if there was always a full moon hovering above. People said ghosts, monsters and all kinds of other things lived in the forest. Legend said that once three woodcutters had tried to cut down trees there. Their bodies were found torn into pieces. Very few went there willingly, but going around the forest could add a couple of days to travel time. A hard decision for merchants eager to transport their goods between the two kingdoms.  

 

It made a perfect hiding place for a retired savior. 

 

Most people believed "retired" was just a figure of speech. They assumed Emma was taking a break and would return to hero-ing the moment she turned twenty-eight.  

 

Various people visited her the week of her birthday to find out how and when she would fulfil the prophecy. They were shocked and horrified to hear her say she wasn’t the so-called savior and had no interest in prophecy mumbo jumbo, 

 

She'd bought a little parcel of land at the edge of the forest that had enough room for chickens, cows, and a few crops. It took a while to get the hang of it, but she was getting by. She didn't need a lot. Her one-room shack could be considered charming, if a bit ramshackle. She borrowed tools until she was able to grow and sell enough tomatoes and radishes to pay for her own.  

 

It meant a lot of hard, physical labor, but Emma found it gave her a sense of satisfaction. Something about getting her hands dirty appealed to her. 

 

Taz didn’t love it. They made a deal to go into town once a week to break up the monotony. Beyond that, he didn’t complain and helped with the chores. 

 

She poked her head into the shack, looking for him to provide his usual assistance with the most difficult task of the day.  

 

Taz was perched on a small, square table eating berries. She had a hearth, a chair, a bed, the small table, and a longer table that was about a foot wide.  She had made the furniture from local trees; the wood was sanded, but still a bit rough to the touch and not painted. The floor had knots, blemishes, and some gaps that were a little wider than she would like. She’d get around to fixing it one day. She had already patched the roof with tin plates here and there that made a tapping sound when it rained. Grumpy, who was a decent carpenter, offered to help her, but she wanted as much independence as possible. 

 

“Hey,” Emma said, “time to feed the horse.” 

 

Taz perked up. “Excellent!” 

 

She shook her head at him and grabbed two empty buckets from nails by the door. Taz flew to the top of her head. She closed the door behind her and they headed out back. 

 

The square wooden corral had a good three hundred square feet of space. In one corner was an open shed that the horse could wander in and out of as he wished. Emma had made an exception and accepted Grumpy’s help to build it all. She wanted Rocinante to be comfortable. Not that he’d ever shown any gratitude.  

 

Emma filled the buckets with oats and water, then she and Taz made their approach. The large black horse glared at them from the middle of the corral. She readied herself, flexing her legs, putting down the buckets to shake out her arms, then rolling her neck.  

 

On most days everything went okay. About once a week, however, he actively tried to kill her.  

 

She eyed the horse. He eyed her back. She unlatched the gate; the horse snorted, tail flipping, but otherwise remained still.  

 

Taz turned his head almost backwards to watch the horse; his job was to warn her if he moved. 

 

Emma pushed the gate open. She walked, slow and steady, to the shed. Rocinante jerked up his head and took a step back. “Taz, this is one time I am glad I can’t feel things.” Fear, she imagined, considering the barren calm inside her, wouldn’t be particularly helpful right now.  

 

She was forced to turn her back to Rocinante as she tossed out the remainder of the oats from the day before. Taz twisted a little more, bobbing his head as he played lookout.  

 

Taz’s talons scratched her skin as he tensed. They both knew the shed was too small for her to use Taz’s speed. When she had two or three feet of room to start with, it allowed her more control. Otherwise, she could wind up careening into a wall (which she’d done once or twice).  

 

“Emmmmmaaaa,” Taz said as he took off in a flurry of feathers. He dove toward the stallion who had gone from completely still to a frenzy of motion. Taz flew around his head until Rocinante tried to bite at him, then he circled the corral, the devil-animal chasing after him. 

 

On days like this, they focused on the bare necessities: Food. Water. Run away.  

 

Taz distracted him, keeping just ahead of him. Emma hurried as best she could.  

 

The horse stopped, kicking up dirt and dust. He swung his head in her direction.  

 

“Shit,” she muttered.  

 

At the same time, they moved. Rochinate whinnying insanely, panting, hooves cutting up the earth. Emma, muscles burning as she pistoned her legs faster than they had ever gone before. At the last moment, Taz's claws seized on her shirt in an awkward landing and she used the speed he gave her. She catapulted over the fence, the horse seeming to come to a standstill until she fell to safety, a knee throbbing as she landed on all fours. Time normalized and Rochinate barreled into the fence, shaking it violently with the impact.  

 

He snorted at her. 

 

“You know you’ll die without me,” she told the horse, still wincing as she stretched out and bent her leg a few times. “Horses aren’t supposed to be evil, ya get me?” Rocinante pawed at the dirt. “And why aren’t you dead? They say the queen had you when she was a kid. You should be dead. Stupid, immortal horse.”  

 

“That was fantastic,” Taz said, climbing from her back to her shoulder. “Masterfully done. Really got my blood pumping. If I had cheeks, they would be flushed. It’s a fact that cannot be disputed: occasional absolute terror is good for you.” He enjoyed these brushes with death a little too much, but it was pretty much the only excitement on the farm. Besides his distractions probably saved her life on a regular basis. She raised her hand and he high-fived her with a wingtip. 

 

He took flight and headed out beyond the farm. He still liked to be in almost constant motion. Sometimes he flew off for a few minutes at a time, but their bond made it impossible for him to fly more than five hundred feet from her, and after a hundred they couldn't communicate. He wouldn’t be gone long though, especially not today. 

 

When she was done with her chores they would go to the Wolfe Heart Tavern. It was a good distance from town, but she tried to get there a couple times a month. This time though, Ruby asked them to come.  

 

Taz was enthralled by the mystery of what Ruby might want. 

 

Later as they walked into the clearing surrounding the tavern, Taz said, ”It could be a treasure hunt. You and I have never had a good treasure hunt. Mind you, as long as you find a treasure, they are all good. The emperor I once served spent weeks looking for the treasure of a pirate called Big Marge Iron-Eye.”  

 

Emma stopped. “You’re making that name up.” 

 

“I may have taken liberties with the eye part,” he said. “However, she was quite large, six feet at least, with muscles the size of logs. The treasure map led to the burial ground of her husband. Apparently she was a romantic.” 

 

“It’s not a treasure map. It’s something to do with the prophecy.” 

 

“But that’s so obvious. Perhaps a witch has turned someone into a newt and they require rescue.” 

 

“Nope. Prophecy.” 

 

She took a deep breath and slipped into her role of confident, cheerful savior. Her public face.  

She went through the main room and into the kitchen, where a trapdoor led down to the basement. 

 

The basement had three large storage areas. Along the back wall, a row of shelves hid a secret opening to a fourth room. She squeezed inside, noting that everyone was already there. Ruby, Grumpy and the others smiled in welcome. Except Ruby, who was standing, they were seated around a rectangular wooden table with high-back chairs.  

 

“Emma,” Ruby said, kissing her cheek and scratching Taz’s head. Taz preened at the attention. “You know Lord Alfred Talien, Arhona Amina Emerlas, and Lady Margaret Karse.” 

 

The Talien, Karse, and Emerlas families all had fiefs that bordered the Ivory Castle. Collectively they had been aiding the rebels for years. The Talien family had the deepest pockets of all of them and had established the Marvelous Library of Malack. Despite its name, it contained a massive art collection and only a few shelves of books. The Karses were a newer line, given land and title by Snow’s grandfather. As a result, they felt the need to adorn everything with gold: weapons, themselves, armor, and so on.  

 

The last family, the dark-skinned Emelas, were the oldest line, native to the Whitranni kingdom. They passionately kept the traditions of their ancestors, such as calling their ruling lord or lady by the title “Arhona.” The Arhona never married, as a symbol that the people were their only focus. The Emelas family believed in the old oral traditions of preserving history through stories. They founded and maintained the Lorea Prima, one of the best schools for bards in the world.  

 

Emma sat. She automatically fished Taz’s bowl from an upper pocket on her vest and set it on the table. He hopped down to it. Ruby brought her an ale and Emma sloshed some to Taz. 

 

Alfred Talien, a rather short young man dressed in simple, long, blue robes, spoke first. “Emma, for a long time the people have lived with the hope of the old kingdom in their hearts. Too many do not remember the way things used to be. You have carried a great burden, but surely...” 

 

Emma scratched the top of Taz’s head.  _““Told you,”_  she thought to him.  _“_ _Prophecy._ _"_ His shoulders and ears sagged.  

 

“So the people are suffering?” she asked. “They’re starving? Disease everywhere?” 

 

The nobles exchanged uncertain glances. Lady Margaret leaned forward, the several gold chains around her neck clinking together. “The fiefs are disconnected,” she said. “The fate of the people in each land depends on the lord or lady. There are fiefs on the water that have suffered flooding. Others have more food than they can spare. Some nobles treat their people fairly, others….” She drifted off, the rest of it obvious. 

 

Emma knew it all. She still sought out news when she could, if only to confirm her now-cynical view of the world. She remained nonchalant, a faint smile on her lips as she drank. “Is the queen terrorizing towns?” 

 

After an awkward pause, Lord Alfred cleared his throat and spoke. “The queen has withdrawn for many years, except for the yearly banquet she holds to demand tribute. We pay twenty percent of the earnings of our fiefs. Twice what we once paid.” 

 

“Yeah, but, it doesn’t bankrupt you? It doesn’t make you have to, I don’t know, buy less clothing or jewelry or whatever.” 

 

Lady Margaret’s voice grew louder and defensive. “We are each allowed only a small contingent of soldiers. She has claimed some of our family lands and sold it to merchants or petty nobility.” 

 

Emma chuckled, unmoved. “And you’ve plowed up acre after acre to grow spices that make you rich but leave the soil barren after a couple of seasons. I'm willing to bet most of that profit isn’t shared with ‘the people’.”  

 

"The spice is a complex industry," Lord Alfred said.  

 

"And it benefits you to keep it that way." 

 

Arhona Amina laughed softly, drawing the attention of the others. eyes narrowed. Her head was wrapped in a high silk headdress with the names of former Arhonas written on it. Out of all of the nobles, she was the only one trained in weapons. Even now, aged sixty or so, she maintained her athletic physique. “We are trying to sell an outhouse and claim it is a castle. Now, is the time for honesty. The issue of how the sudden rush of coins has impacted our fiefs was supposed to have been revisited. A lottery was supposed to have been put into place. We have not managed things well and we must accept the blame. Do you know about the war we fought so long ago against the Zenvum Empire and the Grim Emperor?" 

 

"Everyone knows." 

 

"Do you know it started with forgiveness? Five generations ago my family forgave yours for great wrongs. Together we rose up and were the first to fight the Zenvum Empire. After we defeated the Grim Emperor's army of the dead and living, we had to ask ourselves who we would become. The fiefs did not trust or understand one another. Yet we chose unity, knowing how steep the path would be. We chose what was hard. One kingdom. It is our turn, shall we abandon that legacy? I appeal to the blood in you, the legacy of the Gealban line.” 

 

Taz tilted his head and looked between her and Amina.  _“I thought that was a rather well-crafted argument. I personally cannot wait to see how you answer.”_  

 

Emma took several gulps of ale and wiped her mouth with the  back of  her  hand. Because, yeah, answering that felt like being asked to bail water out of a ship with a spoon. “Look, I get that all of you think I’m some kind of answer. Either because of the prophecy or because of, um, the past and my blood. But if you want your kingdom back? Stop looking to someone else to save you and save yourselves.”   

 

“We are relying on you,” Lord Alfred said. “No one else can rally the people as you can. We will need an army.” 

 

“Yeah, let’s talk about your plan.” Emma pointed at him with her ale. “Our army attacks as a distraction while I take a small group to sneak up through the dungeon and kill the queen. The queen’s crown will deal with our army in moments, and then those of us sneaking in? Are screwed. Even if I was willing, I haven’t heard a plan that has any chance of succeeding.” 

 

“So you intend to leave your parents in their prison?” Lady Margaret asked. 

 

If she could grow angry, that would have caused her to slam her fist down on the table. As it was, the brief burn quickly faded back into nothingness. “I intend to farm. I’m a farmer.” 

 

“You have turned your back on your people. You are a coward,” Arhona Amina said. She tilted up her chin, daring her to deny it. “We will raise the army on our own.” 

 

Grumpy stared down at the table, jaw set in a hard line. Ruby watched with a resigned expression. Emma thought to ask where August was, but he'd taken to traveling the last couple years. He didn’t come around as often anymore. 

 

“I do not know if the people will fight without her,” Lady Margaret said. 

 

“You’re right,” said Lord Alfred. “In some towns — yes. But in many, people won’t come.” 

 

“My people will come,” Arhona Amina said. 

 

“Are you sure?” Lord Alfred said. “Your people may have forgiven the Gealban family for past wrongs, but they surely have not forgiven mine, nor Lady Karse’s.” 

 

Lady Amina splayed her hands on the tabletop as if she was about to rise. “And what have either of you done to start this healing? Nothing.” 

 

They began to argue, and Emma decided it was a good moment to escape. She squeezed Ruby’s shoulder on her way out and stole through the hidden door back into the main basement.  

 

 _“You know, you tell that_ _Zenvum_ _story better,”_  she told Taz. 

 

 _“Well naturally,”_  Taz said,  _“I was there.”_  

 

“Hey,” Grumpy said from behind her. He jerked his thumb toward the room behind him. “You heard them. They can’t get their shit together.” 

 

“Well, they could, but they would have to swallow their colossal sized egos, an almost impossible meal that would certainly give them digestion,” Taz said. 

 

Grumpy gritted his teeth, his eyes still on Emma. “The second you got that sword, you wanted to learn how to use it. Then it was a bow. Then when you turned twelve, you wanted to go raid caravans with us. You said you wanted to be a hero like your mom and dad."  

 

“I was just a kid.” 

 

“You owe them," he said. "If no one else, you owe  _them_.” 

 

“All of my life people have told me what I owe — to the past, my parents, the people.” She touched his shoulder. “I can’t live with that over my head anymore. I should never have had to.” 

 

He drew back. “She was my best friend, your mom. I failed her.” He lifted his spectacles to rub the sheen of tears from his eyes. ”Couldn’t save your dad.” He had never said it like that, never let her fully see his sorrow or his guilt. “You can. What I wouldn’t give to have that power.” 

 

She swallowed. She didn’t know how to react to his sadness. It was like standing at the edge of a deep ravine and staring at the other side, with no way to get there.  

 

“I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing what else to say. 

 

############################################ 

 

The next day she started the chores earlier than usual, but she let Taz sleep. 

 

As the sun rose above the horizon she heard, “Well, well, the mighty Savior.” The voice came from behind her followed by a giggle. She turned to find a man about two feet shorter than her, his green skin shimmering with tiny gold flakes.   

 

“Old Miss Swan, had a farm E-I-E-I-O.”  

 

She moved a little closer to him. “What are you?“  

 

“Ah yes, introductions. I am Rumplestiltskin,” he said, bowing. “You are the White Swan, or, well, the Savior.” 

 

It took her a minute to place the name. “Rumplestiltskin. I used to hear stories about you. “You’re, um, a leprechaun?” 

 

“I am the Dark One. More death and less pot of gold.” He motioned to her with a flourish of both hands. “What else have you heard?” 

 

“That you do favors and you’re not to be trusted.” 

 

“Buyer’s remorse, dearie. And people are skittish about magic and anything they don’t understand.” He shook his head. “People will be people. I don’t do favors though, I facilitate negotiations. Something I want for something the other party wants.” He rubbed his hands together. “Of course, you may not have what I want. Depends.” He made a faint wriggling gesture with his fingers and she heard a crackling sound from the nearby bushes. Two of the queen’s guards emerged and began charging toward her. 

 

“Taz,” Emma said softly, and he flew to her hand to become a saber. She ducked the cut of the first guard’s sword and brought her own forward to thrust into the second man. They both dissipated into smoke. 

 

Rumpelstiltskin pointed at her. “Not so much a farmer, are you? And,” he glanced to Taz, “the enchanted sword. I would have like to have met you back in your day. Oh well.” Taz held his peace for now, and Emma knew he was trying to let her keep her focus.  

 

Rumplestiltskin settled onto a nearby tree stump. “Hmm, usually after I tell people who I am, show some of my power, they fear me. But you don’t. Not even a little.” He closed his eyes and breathed slow and deep. She didn’t know what to do beyond keeping a sword on him. “Oh my, your mother was big on ‘follow your heart’ speeches. But you can’t do that, can you? How ironic. The prophecy mentions a heart of stone. People always assumed that meant your parents." 

 

Emma lowered Taz to rest on her shoulder. “The crystal crown — I think it did something to me.” 

 

Rumplestiltskin opened his eyes. “Often magic begins in the heart and spreads out. Your parents made a deal with me for a spell that would save your life. They cast it just as the Evil Queen was turning everyone into statues. It saved you but, well, not all of you.” 

 

“Is there — could you cure it?” 

 

He considered the question. “That crown has powerful magic. Very old. In time, I could make something that gives you brief respites. But the only cure is to break the curse. Speaking of which...I’ve come to help you.” 

 

“The prophecy.” She shook her head and sighed. “Well, that’s different. No offense, but you’re about the tenth person this week.“ 

 

He disappeared in a poof of green smoke only to reappear, sitting on the edge of her roof. “Do you know what a prophecy is?” 

 

“Something people use to explain away their laziness?” 

 

He made a tsk sound. “How cynical. No, a prophecy is a singular opportunity to make the impossible possible,” he said. “A door that people may or may not walk through." 

  

“The toad-like man is quite correct," Taz said. "The great books of prophecy appeared long, long ago. Though prophecy is such an inaccurate name for them because they sometimes contain stories, proverbs, even a recipe for mulled wine. It was quite good, but I used to add rum to it for a little kick.” She pinched the hilt, a signal they’d agreed on long ago. “Back to the subject at hand, prophecies are always true, but they are not guarantees. Some of the prophecies in the book came and went and, as far as anyone knows, were never fulfilled.” 

 

“Let me save you some time,” Emma said, eyes on Rumpelstiltskin, hands moving her her hips. “The prophecy says, ‘She who was born of stone heart will lay down her head.’ and talks about a hero. They are not necessarily the same person.And I’m not gonna go through with some suicidal plan to attack the queen.” 

 

“I’m not offering to help you attack the queen. I'm offering to help you break the curse.” He held up a vial filled with clear liquid except for one drop of red in the center. “This potion will override the free will of the Evil Queen for a quarter of a candlemark.” 

 

“I don’t — what good will that do?”  

 

“Only the one who wields the crown can break it. Once it's broken, all of the magic cast by its owner will be undone. Slip her the potion and command her to break the crown.” 

 

She watched him dubiously. Everyone knew what the prophecy said. She was supposed to kill the queen. Unless...maybe this could be proof the prophecy wasn't as binding as everyone except her believed.  “Even if I wanted to, she never leaves her castle.” 

 

“The queen holds a banquet every year to keep the nobility in check. It’s almost that time. I can get you in. She doesn’t have many vices. One is her collections and the other is occasionally indulging in blondes at her banquets. Charm her, trick her, whatever. Just get her to take a little sip of that potion.” 

 

Emma thought carefully. She hadn’t assessed a plan of attack in quite some time. This, overall, was much better than the nobles’ idea. Still extremely risky and with no better than a fifty percent chance of success. But...still. “And what do you get out of this?” 

 

“That’s my business. Let’s talk about what’s in it for you. Your poor mother and father — restored. And you, that heart of yours that feels nothing — cured. Imagine reading one of Snow White’s letters and actually feeling the love she sent to you over and over.” 

 

He tilted his head, the trap set and waiting to see if she would take the bait. “Do we have a deal?” 

 

She almost said yes. Almost. She tightened her jaw instead. “I’m retired.” 

 

“I see. Well, I’m just going to leave this here.” He hopped down from the roof and placed the bottle by the front door. “You know, in case you change your mind.” 

 

“I’m not…” 

 

“See you soon.” 

 

“Hey!” She yelled at the air where he’d been. She stared at the gift he’d left behind and couldn’t help but bend down and pick it up. “Shit,” she muttered. 

 

She decided to put it with her mother’s letters, in the chest by her bed that held anything she wanted to forget.  

 

She opened the lid, fingers twitching as she came face to face with five unopened letters. Granny had died, she couldn't connect to her mother's emotions and so, they'd gone unread. She put the vial inside and closed the chest. 

 

Emma sat down at the small rectangular table on one side of the room and unwrapped a block of cheese, cutting pieces for herself and Taz. “I have to decide what crops to plant next,” she said, trying to move past the visit from the Dark One. But she couldn’t. She stood and paced. She grabbed for her bow, entertaining the notion of going hunting. She eyed a hoe resting in the corner. She needed to move. The calm inside her felt icy and uncomfortable. 

 

And Taz was unusually quiet. 

 

“Taz, you don’t have anything to say? You’re the only one who hasn’t tried to make me change my mind. You don’t have some speech about adventure or bravery or honor?” It sounded like an accusation, which wasn’t fair, but she needed him. And on this one topic, he had never commented.  

 

He raised his head toward her, then hummed in her mind, a stanza that offered tenderness. “In my youth, I had so many ideals. But many discounted me. Ignored me. Eventually it became more important to make them see me. Make them respect me. It took being turned into a sword, abandoned, and hearing the song of a blacksmith’s daughter to make me remember. She played the flute. She was very talented.” He repeated the music out loud. “I remember that song like it was yesterday.” 

 

Taz flew to her shoulder. “I watched you darken, become cynical and lose your spirit. But there is still brightness in you, Emma. Unlike me, you have never lost it.”  

 

“Even if I can’t feel it?” 

 

“But it’s not just a feeling. A hero sacrifices for others. A hero gives when the world is greedy.  A hero shouts for those who have no voice. Despite everything, that is who you want to be. You think there is too much wrong in the world for your actions to matter, but light begets light. Do one thing, Little Bit, and watch what happens.” 

 

She had clenched her fists without realizing it. She relaxed them and stroked his feathers. “Anyone else would be crying right now from that speech.” She shook her head. “You’re stuck with  _me_.” 

 

“Only before you activated me did I feel stuck. Besides, I have an excellent imagination. In my mind, you are on the floor weeping uncontrollably, practically eviscerated by inspiration.”  

 

Emma slept on it. One day, then two. The thought of that vial and Taz’s words followed her. 

 

“If I do this,” she said to Taz on the third morning, “will you finally tell me what the third power is?” 

 

“Absolutely not.” 

 

“Damn.”  

 

She went to the chest, opened it and stared inside. “If I do this, it doesn’t mean I’m the hero or savior or whatever the prophecy talks about. And it doesn't mean the nobles or the people shouldn't have gotten off their asses.” She lifted the vial. ”Mom wrote me twenty-eight letters and ended every single one saying she loves me. Dad fought off the queen’s guards and gave me to Grumpy so I’d escape. Maybe what matters is that they were good people. That  _they_  were heroes. They deserve someone to try, don't they? If there's a real chance they could be rescued, if this potion could work, I want to try.” 

 


	4. Of Old Friends and Late Arrivals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday Everybody!  
> First, I want to say Happy Anniversary to my wife. We have been together 16 years but only married a couple of years ago. She puts up with my bear-like behavior in the morning AND my sense of humor.
> 
> Second, today's flight includes two witches for the price of one, a rose that will not die AND....a meeting you might have been anticipating. Please buckle your seat-belts. We're going in.
> 
> This, is your captain speaking.

_Y ears before he became known_ _as the Grim Emperor, he gathered_ _sorcerers_ _around him._ _One in particular_ _,_ _Ta_ _z_ _m_ _aran_ _Stoli_ _o_ _,_ _came from a very poor family, but would grow to harness the darkest of_ _magicks_ _. From him, the Grim Emperor would_ _gain an undead army of_ _thousands._ _Tazmaran_ _raised them from graves; shadowy creatures with red eyes holding jagged swords that glowed with blue light. He fit them in armor of bone; a suitable form of protection for such horrible, twisted things._  

 

 

 _The night before the banquet_  

 

The design of the room made it easy to ignore the chaos behind her. At the far end of the room, four curved steps led to a small upper level. Her desk pressed close to a wide rectangular window, between two bookshelves. A set of comfortable high back chairs and a side table were off to one side. The red velvet fabric that covered them was in immaculate condition, as if no one had ever sat in them. Her desk chair, an armchair with a gold cushion, creaked when she sat, the years of use showing in sound, not in appearance. On the other side of the room the Mirror of Muirgein stood silently, waiting for bidding. 

 

Her desk had a canister holding scrolls, and there were two piles of books so high they wobbled slightly when she moved the desk in any way. The rest of the room was so neat, framed by a large blue area rug with a floral pattern, that the condition of the desktop seemed an aberration.  

 

Or would have, if not for the main room. It was so full of items that there was only a small path that ran down the center of the room from the door to the steps of her work area. There were magical items of every type: a wall of weapons, tiered wooden shelves full of vases and knickknacks, an organ with large brass pipes, musical instruments of every type, glass cases of rings and other jewelry, coat stands heavy with clothes, and a large carpet rolled up and placed in a corner. Her collection of enchanted objects once lived in her bedroom but quickly outgrew the space.  

 

In this room, her study, Regina pored over scrolls and books, determined to discover anything she could about the items in her collection. Or, even better, find an addition. As she worked, her hair inevitably came loose from its high bun, delicate strands becoming clumps. As she took notes, her fingers grew increasingly stained with ink. Early in her magic collection's life, she had to create an oil to get her hands completely clean. It sometimes occurred to her, like a butterfly briefly landing in the back of her mind that perhaps she was abandoning too much of her life there. People had stopped bringing her heroes. Perhaps there were none left other than the White Swan.  

 

Sometimes she even came to this room of magical things in her dreams, as if some part of her couldn't bear to be parted from the place that allowed her to escape the absence of the life she wished she had. Yet in her dreams, the mirror was also always there. No matter where she went, the churning fog cleared to show her the boy.  

 

She resisted asking to see the vision again at first, it filled her with aching to see her happiness when she held the child. After a short time, though, it needled her chest  _not_ to look upon that image.  

 

Henry. When she thought of the future, she could not, even in her deepest imagination, accept his presence. After first seeing him, she pulled her heart from her chest to check it, . Still black. Sometimes she thought that if she could trust even in the possibility of him, everything would be different. What had she ever wanted but to adore and receive adoration? So easy for others, so impossible for her.  

 

Yet, whether she believed in the idea of him or not, he followed her every day. His smile and bright eyes making her in pause in mid-step when she rounded a corner, when she tried to read, when she wanted to be lost in her collection. Even now, when she should be thinking of the banquet tomorrow, she thought of him. 

  

She knew when the savior's birthday was; she had expected an attack on her castle on that very day. Yet it was four weeks past and the savior hadn't come. Regina didn't understand it. She surmised that the waif was waiting for a spectacle and if so, then the banquet would be the best opportunity. Sidney suggested she cancel it. After all this time, he didn't understand that allowing Snow White's daughter to have such a victory was unthinkable. No, she wanted this to be over. And when it was, perhaps... 

 

A surge of power shifted the room, making the air colder and lighter. She turned, her hand instinctively reaching for the crystal crown on her head. She thought it would be the imp. 

 

Instead Maleficent stood there, a mass of messy blonde curls thick and bushy high atop her head. It had been years. She hadn't changed at all. Regina supposed she hadn't either. She saw no need to bow to natural things like time when she could use magic to significantly slow down aging. 

 

“Hello, Regina.” A smile curled the edges of her visitor’s mouth. “Miss me?” 

 

“Maleficent.” Regina tried to hide her hands and the black smudges marring them. “Where have you —  

 

Maleficent leaned on her gnarled staff in the center of the area rug. “Sorry it's been so long. I was touched to hear that you looked for me." 

 

"I thought perhaps a witch hunter had gotten the better of you." 

  

They were old friends in that they had known one another a long time, but they only confided in one another when absolutely necessary. "Not just yet. Love what you've done with the place, by the way," she said, and motioned to the crammed lower portion of the room. "You've been trying to find out about the Mirror of Muirgien, so I hear. I thought I might be able to help. For old time's sake." 

 

“Greetings, Maleficent,” the mirror said. 

 

“Polite,” Maleficent said. She drifted toward it. Like everyone else except Regina, her reflection did not show in the glass. She touched the frame, fingers skimming over it. “Lovely piece," she said softly. "Very old. Though there's no real evidence that it ever really belonged to the ancient sorceress." She turned from it to face Regina. "Do you still need help, or did you wind up asking the imp?” 

 

“I could never bring this to him. This is a personal matter.”  

 

"Trust, such an underrated currency. So, if you can't trust him, the question becomes: Can you trust me?" Regina hesitated and Maleficent's expression became thoughtful. "Something is truly troubling you. Is it so serious?" 

 

"The mirror showed me something from the future. I think it might be a trick." 

 

Maleficent faced the mirror again, and without lifting her staff, she tilted it forward. A white globe formed near her, floating and slowly becoming bigger and brighter. It flew toward the mirror and when it was large enough, it encompassed it. Maleficent wiggled her fingertips and the white light pulsed like a heartbeat. "No sign of corruption," she said. "Mirror, will you show me what you’ve shown her?” 

 

“If the queen wishes.” Regina’s jaw tensed, but she nodded. The vision of the baby appeared, with her holding him and delicately kissing his temple.  

 

 Maleficent turned to Regina in surprise. The light encasing the mirror faded. 

 

“Henry,” Regina said, eyes never leaving the boy. “It won’t tell me where he comes from."  

 

“I cannot. There are too many paths to the same place,” the mirror said softly.  

 

“How long till this comes true?,” asked Maleficent. 

 

“Not long,” said the mirror. 

 

Maleficent chuckled. “Magical things are always so enigmatic. What is ‘not long ’ to something that’s been around for thousands of years, I wonder? Regina, is this what you use this for — to see the future?”  

 

Regina tore her attention away from the image. “Mostly I use it to spy on people,” she said, eager to get back to more important matters. “I wanted to know if the mirror might operate by different laws of magic. It's old, as you said. Perhaps it is trying to trick me.”  

 

Maleficent shook her head. “If you’re bonded to it, it cannot lie or act against you. That law has been true since the beginning. It seems congratulations are in order. When did the mirror show this to you?" 

 

"A decade ago." 

 

"And you haven't tried to make the vision become true?" 

 

Regina's expression was dry but tolerant. "Maybe you haven't heard that I'm supposed to die. It's said the daughter of Snow White will kill me. I tried finding her. I learned magics to spy on every tavern in this kingdom. I have embedded tiny bits of glass in tavern keys and chimneys so I could listen for word of her. I have sent armies into the Moon Forest." 

 

"Goodness, did anyone return?" 

 

Regina sighed. "Some. Until I find her, I see little point in focusing on the future. Even after all this time, Snow is still standing in my way. But, the time of the prophecy is here. I believe — I hope — she'll be coming to the banquet I am holding tomorrow. Every noble family in the kingdom will be here. A perfect time and place for the fabled savior to appear. Maybe after tomorrow, this will all be over. I have doubled the guard in the palace. But I suspect that my salvation lies in the crown you traded to me." 

 

Malificient draped herself in one of the armchairs, sitting so that her ankles dangled over one of the arms. "And so, should you defy the prophecy, you'll finally move forward with what the mirror showed you?" Maleficent gave a tiny smirk. "Have you considered how you’ll procure this child?” 

 

Regina shook her head, a hand waving the words away. “I suppose I’ll need another husband.” 

 

Maleficent pursed her lips in consideration. “Or someone very desperate. Children can be adopted, so I am told.” 

 

Regina lowered her eyes. “Who would trust the evil queen with a child?” She slammed shut the door on her sadness. A queen did not betray her weaknesses. Ever. 

 

Maleficent tapped her chin. "Have you asked yourself how this kingdom will greet him? Unless things have changed, the people of Whitranni have never been too fond of you." 

 

"He'll be different." 

 

"He'll be your son, Regina. They will judge him because of what you've done." 

 

Old wounds that had never closed bled in her heart at the words."I haven't done anything in years." She shook her head. "He'll be kind. He'll be better than I am. After tomorrow, after I deal with the savior...I can do whatever I need to do." 

 

 Maleficent rose. "Well, I suppose I should seek out the imp. I hear he's eager to talk with me." 

 

“Before you go, Rumpelstiltskin researched my crown. He said the only way to destroy it, is if I break it with my bare hands. But, because of how —” Regina hesitated; the violence of the bonding always felt private. As if sharing the story was something she should be embarrassed about. “— intense the bonding was, I’ll die. You gave me the crown, do you know if that’s true?” 

 

“I never activated it.” Maleficent leaned on her staff. “But," she pointed at the mirror with her staff, "a child is a gift beyond imagining. I was never blessed with one. If there's a chance you will be, you have every reason in the world to do whatever it takes to stay alive." 

 

 

################################################################## 

 

The town of Kargie in the Talisen Fief was close enough to serve as a meeting point and had just enough traffic so that strangers wouldn’t draw too much attention. Emma entered the Roaring Pig Tavern and it felt like familiar territory, as did most rough and tumble drinking establishments. The dark wooden bar was a little larger than the one in Wolfe's Heart tavern, but overall it had exactly the same ambiance. People drinking and talking, a few old men at the back playing cards for coin. A few glanced at her as she entered, but no one paid her a second look. She went to the barkeeper and requested a room for a few days. The older woman in a stained apron quoted a price, then snatched the coins Emma offered.  

 

“Room’s upstairs on the right," the bartender grunted as she handed Emma a key.  

 

Emma nodded, went to find her room, and waited for her friends to arrive. 

 

Emma had first sent for them weeks ago. She told them about the vial and where it had come from. They had asked her a lot of questions about Rumpelstiltskin and how she planned to pull off slipping the potion to the queen. As they discussed things her friends stood stiff and grim. They had met a few times since then. Each time there were still signs of agitation — restless movements and a desire to leave as soon as they were able. She didn’t know what to do about it, how to fix it.  

 

When they were all together in her room at the tavern, Grumpy addressed the matter head-on. "Before we do this," he began and waited till the others looked at him. "You should know how pissed off we still are. The nobles were assholes to you. But, we've always supported you, followed you no matter what. You should have kept going for us. Because we're family and that's what family does. And because some of us aren't here, and if that doesn't motivate you, then I don't know what the fuck we're doing." 

 

August, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wall, dropped his head, and Ruby too, kept her gaze averted. Both too polite to be as direct as her childhood father-figure. 

 

Emma nodded. She thought, as she often had, about telling them she was wrong. In all the world, these were the people who truly loved her. But, she believed they needed her to be the creation of the prophecy just as much everyone else. She held her tongue now, as always, and put on the usual disguise. This time, she tried to look wounded, eyes large and mouth arched slightly downwards. 

 

"Look, I've been a little lost. I wasn't sure I could be who I was supposed to be." It was the closest to the truth she could offer. "This plan is kinda stupid. I'm not sure we can pull it off, but at least it has a shot. And it doesn't risk thousands of lives like the nobles' plan does. If you're willing to follow me one more time, I need you guys." 

 

August finally raised his eyes and he bent down to open his backpack. "Tell you what," He held up a clear bottle with an equally clear liquid. "This is some of the most powerful, nasty stuff I've ever drank. They say if it remains in a bottle longer than a couple weeks it will eat through it. But —" he shook it, stirring the alcohol inside the bottle, then he uncorked it. "— it's supposed to never give you a hangover. I say we drink this till we forget why we're pissed at one another." 

 

Taz flapped his wings and landed on August's wrist. He breathed in the scent from the bottle then coughed. "We should absolutely try this." 

 

August winked at Taz, then extended the bottle to Emma, who saluted him with it. 

 

They passed the bottle around several times. When it was Emma's turn, she poured some in Taz's bowl which he quickly drank. 

 

“So,” Ruby said, "I have bad news. They have all the servants in the castle doing double duty to help with the banquet." The bottle was handed to her and she took a gulp, making a face of disgust after. "Ugh," she groaned and gave the bottle to Grumpy. "I hoped I’d be helping in the kitchen and I am. But, washing dishes.” 

 

Grumpy cursed under his breath. He sat down on the bed, taking a swing from the bottle, untroubled by the taste. “That’s plan B dead in the water.” 

 

Three weeks ago Ruby had gotten a job in the castle as a maid. They hadn’t been able to pull off getting her assigned to the kitchen, which would have been perfect for slipping something to the queen. That had been plan A. When they realized that all the servants would be assisting with the banquet, it seemed like the fates might give them another easy option — plan B.  

 

“So, we’re at plan C. Emma.” August said. They all turned their eyes to her. “Or should I say.” He bowed, hand on his heart. “Lady Elizabeth Tristeep. The Tristeeps were grateful one of their real family members didn’t have to go to the banquet and pay tribute." 

 

He reached into his bag again. "And here’s your gift.” He gave her a long wooden box. “Hopefully, it’s enough.” He scratched at the two days' worth of beard on his cheek. “They asked a lot of questions.” 

 

“The nobles would want to make things bigger than they need to be. Plus, they have their own motives. If we fail..." Emma shook her head. "This is up to us. One chance to get it right.” 

 

They considered that in silence.  

 

“If we fail," Ruby said quietly, "we get out, we go to the caverns. We regroup." 

 

Grumpy tilted his head back and took a much longer drink this time. "Why do we always go to the caverns to hide? They're haunted. I lost one of my brothers in there." He didn't usually talk about his immediate family. Four died the day that the queen cast her curse. The others helped spy or stir up the people as best they could.  

 

"He strayed out of the mapped area," August said, covering his mouth just as he burped.  

 

"They say..." Taz wobbled a little on his clawed feet, both of his ears drooping. "That evil creatures live at the heart of the caverns, waiting for mortals to get lost in the mines and then...eat their souls." 

 

Grumpy pointed at him. "See?" 

 

"Emma won't be any safer at the banquet," August said. "Emma has to get the attention of the queen. Once a year she emerges from her lair and sometimes she chooses someone to have her wicked way with." He clamped a hand down on Emma's arm. "And then she devours them." 

 

"Hey," Emma said, scolding. "I have to give her this potion thing. We don't need to make fun of her too." 

 

"Yeah, let's not be too hard on the evil queen. She's the one that started this war. Besides, prophecy says you will kill her," August reminded, "'The queen will scream her defiance and surrender. Through death will there be renewal in Ivory halls.'" 

 

Then all of them said together, "'They will wonder then at the power of hope.'" 

 

August slumped to the floor, his back to the bed as they continued to pass the bottle. Emma lay diagonally on it, her shoulders propped on the wall. 

 

Ruby squeezed between her and Grumpy. "Hey. The prophecy isn't the boss of her." Then she whispered. "But it kinda is." Her words clumped together in starts and stops. "Caverns if something goes wrong. Emma, there were a buncha new servants today. They all had —" she made a muscle. "I think I saw a short sword under one’s cloak.” 

 

August nodded. “They hired extra guards in the last week, too. The queen...does something to them. The guy I stole my uniform from? Eyes were all black. I think that's why they wear that screen over their helmets.” He tried to look up at the others on the bed, twisting his head as far as he could to one side. "So Emma makes her big entrance. She gets the queen’s attention. We hope the queen doesn’t kill her on the spot and then...we’re depending on Emma’s flirting abilities?" 

 

Ruby frowned, but it was exaggerated, as if the muscles in her face weren't working as she wanted them to. "The fate of everything depends on Emma's florting...flir....flirting?”  

 

“No plan D?” Grumpy asked. 

 

“If plan C fails, it probably means she caught me,” Emma said.  

 

Ruby curled under Grumpy's cloak, which he was still wearing. "But, maybe we succeed. Snow and David come back." Ruby's eyes closed but a soft smile touched her lips. "Maybe tomorrow we win." 

 

The conversation stopped again, the weight and wonder of that pressing down on them even in their sluggish states. 

 

Taz flew from the table, missed his landing on Emma's shoulder, stopped in mid-air, and slowly zig-zagged his way back to it. "I will, should Emma become lost in her wooing, offer her the benefit of my eloquence.” 

 

“Tell you what,” August said. “Emma can hear you from far away, right? So, you come with me and we'll both, y'know..." 

 

“Only if needed,” Taz insisted. “Emma." He awkwardly tapped her nose with his wing. "You have been woefully neglectful in practicing the pursuit of romantic possibilities.” 

 

She frowned at him. “This is about saving the kingdom.” 

 

“What kind of hero doesn’t have a poignant, timeless love story?" Taz asked. "Throughout history, a story that will be told again and again and will make any who hear it believe in the stench of the heart. Wait...no.  _Strength_ of the heart." 

 

They broke into laughter, except Emma who had drunk enough to forget her usual affectations. They didn't notice.  

 

Grumpy patted her leg. "You're a good kid. I love ya, ya know?" 

 

"I love you guys," Ruby agreed. August started to snore. 

 

 

##################################################### 

 

In the Ivory Castle, the presentation of tributes to the queen was scheduled  for the early afternoon, after the banquet's first course. The Tristeep family was the only one not accounted for.  

 

Well, Regina thought, they would learn not to refuse her invitations. But that was for another day. She clapped her hands and the music and entertainers stopped, as did any hint of conversation. The procession of nobles began. She called them up to her table in whatever order suited her, just to keep them guessing. Today, she simply went around the first table, then started on the second. She enjoyed watching as they bowed, trying not to meet her eyes, and presented their chests of coin, the tribute she demanded on a yearly basis. 

 

When Lord Marcus Banok's name was called, he rose slowly. He plodded forward, fists clenched. He was a balding man with a thick mustache and mutton chops. He wore two strands of pearls; a proud testament to his fief's location by the sea.  

 

"Lord Banok." Regina smiled pleasantly. "You seem to have forgotten something." 

  

"My Queen, as you know, my people still suffer from flooding in our Fief. We have asked nearby towns for help, towns that are thriving due to the export of spices. But we have been left on our own. We...are unable to offer tribute."  

  

Sidney leaned towards Regina. “The crown gave them thousands when the flooding initially occurred,” he said.  

  

“Which lasted weeks,” Banok said. "I asked to be excused from tribute months ago." 

 

Regina turned to Sidney, silent questions spearing him. He scratched the back of his head and tugged at the ruffled cuffs of the shirt under his long jacket. "I did not feel it was appropriate." 

 

Regina wished she could summon the will to care for more than just a few moments. Every interaction with her so-called people made her want to bury herself all the deeper in her collections.  

 

"Your Majesty," Banok said, "my people are dying. I...I will offer anything of mine you wish, but I cannot give you your due.” 

 

A man at the first table stood. "My queen, we have offered assistance to Lord Banok."  

  

"In exchange for their help, they want certain lands. Lands that have not been theirs for centuries.”  

  

“Which does not nullify the claim,” Lord William Castor, a tall man dressed in a red cloak and a gold chainmail tunic called out. He approached the queen's table in rapid strides. “If you were as desperate as you say, you would agree to our reasonable demands.”  

  

“If you had any honor, Lord William,” Banok said, seething, “you would not bargain with my people’s lives." 

 

"That's quite enough." Regina rose, raising her fingers to the crown atop her head. Some paled. Others held their breath. Insects, she thought with satisfaction. She adjusted the crown delicately and lowered her arm, smiling. Back when people brought her heroes, she would use the crown on them during these banquets; a reminder of her power. Since then she'd had to improvise. These two had just presented her with an opportunity.  

 

"Refusal to pay tribute is treason." She paused, remembering the conversation with Maleficent.  No, Henry was only a hint of a form in the mist of the future. She could not appear weak. "There is but one punishment for treason." Guards moved to stand behind Lord Banok, and he looked helplessly around the room for help.  

 

A trumpet sounded, blaring into the uncomfortably silent room. "Lady Elizabeth Tristeep," her crier announced, as was the custom when a member of a noble family arrived. 

 

A tall blonde woman, shoulders back, a smile curling her lips, strode down the stairs. Beside her one of her guards carried a large chest. "Sorry I'm late," said Lady Elizabeth.  

 

Regina's stomach fluttered in excitement; she wondered if the moment she'd been waiting for over twenty years was here at last. "I am unaccustomed to being kept waiting, Lady Tristeep." 

 

Lady Elizabeth's smile was playfully challenging. "Maybe some things are worth waiting for, My Queen. My family sends tribute, but also...I have a present for you. That's why I am late." She directed the guard to lay the chest down before the queen's table while she reached into the long wooden box she carried. Several guards tensed and stepped closer. "I have a habit of trying to fix things that are wrong. It's wrong that you can't grow roses on the castle grounds." 

 

The barrenness of the castle was never mentioned. Sidney stood, furious. "How dare —"  

 

Regina touched his arm to quiet him and inspected Lady Elizabeth. She wore a cream colored dress. Sequins and tiny sapphires ran over the V of her neckline, which allowed the faintest peek at the swell of her breasts. From a simple chain hung a heart-shaped silver pendant. Her hair was short, golden and soft with a thin tiara, also with a sprinkling of gems. Beautiful, without question. And so brave. So...entertaining. 

 

"And you are going to address this injustice?" Regina asked softly, dangerously.  

 

"In the mountains near Tristeep, we mine many gems. I wanted to give you a rose that will never die." She approached the queen's table and offered her the gift. The open petals of the flower were made of carefully chiseled rubies. They were rich in color, but so delicate they were almost transparent. Aqua-green tourmaline stone made the stem, and a pair of silver leaves sprouted from it.  

 

Regina took the rose, honestly admiring the craftsmanship. "It's beautiful. Tell your family that I appreciate their generosity, although...I must know why you and I have never met." Her eyes connected with Lady Elizabeth's. "Where have you been hiding?" 

 

"I'm, ah, a distant cousin." Lady Elizabeth gave an awkward curtsy, and Regina pretended not to notice. "But I have always wanted to meet you, Majesty." 

 

Regina set down the rose. She rounded the table, hips sashaying gently. Every step measured and exact, elegant. The guards pulled the two lords who had been arguing out of the way so they would not impede her.  

 

She walked to within a few feet of Lady Elizabeth, openly assessing her. Elizabeth tilted up her chin, standing straighter. “You don’t have a drink, Lady Elizabeth.” She motioned to a servant. “Some wine for my guest.”  

  

A young girl rushed towards them with a silver tray. Regina plucked one of the glasses from it.  

  

Lady Elizabeth was more tentative, but also took a glass. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”  

  

Regina crossed in front of her, moving in a half-circle. “Your arrival is timely. I could use a second opinion. Lord Banok is unable to pay tribute, due to flooding in his lands. Lord Castor offered his assistance, but only if certain Banok lands were given to his family." She spoke loudly so that everyone could hear. Her cool smile was wielded against their audience, a baring of teeth. "Tell me, what would you do, if you were me?" 

 

Elizabeth looked between the men. "I'm...it's not my place." 

 

"Oh, but I insist." 

 

Elizabeth made a helpless gesture then set her hands on her hips. Her feet splayed apart in an unlady-like fashion. "I wouldn't do anything. The lords have almost absolute jurisdiction over their lands. Some cities are rich from trading spices. Some lords charge higher taxes than the crown does and pocket the extra coin.”  

  

Regina cut her eyes to Sidney. Something else they would discuss after the banquet.  

  

”They could help themselves if they work together," Elizabeth said. 

  

“An interesting thought. But wouldn’t it follow then,” Regina said, “that perhaps a queen isn’t needed at all?” Regina took a long, lazy sip of wine as if she didn’t realize that the nobles watching were fidgeting and uncomfortable. A few awkward coughs broke the silence.  

  

Elizabeth didn’t seem intimidated; instead she grinned, inviting the room to share in the joke. “I would never say that. I hear making you angry leads to messiness. I'd hate to get my blood on your floor." Her hands moved behind her back, a non-provoking pose, at least in appearance. "No, having a strong leader is good. Someone needs to make sure the nobles are thinking both long and short term.”  

  

Regina couldn’t remember the last time anyone stood before her and refused to bend in any way. It filled her like fresh air after confinement in a putrid dungeon. “Assuming the nobles are able to do anything beyond count their coins and whine about the taxes, you mean?” She chuckled and pivoted around, daring any of the lords and ladies to object.  

  

Elizabeth advanced until she stood directly across from Regina. “Yeah, but isn’t part of being a leader holding them accountable?”  

  

Their words tapped against one another, seeking weaknesses. They advanced and parried, skilled and graceful.  

  

Regina’s pulse jumped, she felt the rush of it through her entire body. She was enjoying this. She stalked Elizabeth lazily, closing space between them again. “It’s like the saying about bringing a horse to water. Getting them to do simple things is exhausting, much less what is best for them.”  

  

“Well, you could try and convince them.” Elizabeth said. A quiet murmur touched one corner of the room. Regina swiveled and glared in that direction, and it ceased. “You could make a case.”  

  

“This is a monarchy, dear. Kings and queens…” She drank again, moved two steps away and took a napkin off a nearby table. She dabbed the corners of her mouth. “...answer to no one. Their power is absolute.”  

   

“Right.” Elizabeth let the word hang there a moment, and hands still behind her, now she was the pursuer. What she said next, she did without any hint of smile. The play between them became much more real. “And what does it mean when a king or queen feels they have to constantly remind their kingdom of that?”  

  

Regina’s anger burned, heart raging in her chest, face coloring. “It means that if the people are smart, they will obey and not ask foolish questions.”  

 

Elizabeth cocked her head as if listening to something. "There are lots of foolish things that, if we didn't do them, would make life dull, My Queen. Maybe sometimes the risk is worth it." 

 

Regina's hand tingled with the desire to use her magic, but still, this woman did not cower or avert her eyes. She painted on a pleasant expression again. “Perhaps, and perhaps this discussion is pointless. After all, the savior will come any day now, and she will solve all the problems of the kingdom with a snap of her fingers.”  

  

They stayed close now, face to face.  

 

Elizabeth shook her head. “In all of our history, Your Majesty, there’s never been anyone with that power.” Her voice grew softer, so low everyone except Regina had to strain to hear her. “I don’t think there ever will be.”  

  

“A passionate debate.” Regina leaned in, her lips close to Elizabeth’s cheek, then her ear. “I wonder what else stirs such passion in you,” she whispered. Elizabeth blinked rapidly, mouth slightly agape as if she suddenly didn’t know how to reply.  

 

Good. Regina strolled back to her chair, giving Elizabeth one more glance. “Perhaps you would like to sit with me and get better acquainted?”   

  

“Sure." She shook her head at herself. "I mean, I’d be honored.” Elizabeth gave another curtsy, executed much more smoothly this time.  

  

Regina sat as Lady Elizabeth took the seat to her left and Sidney the one to her right. "Well, back to the matter at hand. Lord Banok, usually your failing to provide tribute would mean death. However, Lady Elizabeth's words have made me curious. Guards, take Lord Banok to the dungeon. Then go to his fief and collect his wife and two eldest children. Detain Lord Castor, his wife and his two eldest children as well. If the two lords can't reach an accord by morning, they'll all be executed." The guards took hold of both men and shoved them toward the main doors.  

 

“Honored guests,” Regina said. “The rest of the tributes can wait a moment." Regina glanced over her shoulder to a servant. “Make sure everyone’s glass is filled. I have an announcement to make." 


	5. Of Tricking Prophecies and Escaping Queens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday everyone,  
> The plane will be maintaining altitude for most of the flight but may drop suddenly at the end. Also, Regina and Emma might be falling for one another. Hard to say. 
> 
> Thank you all for the feedback and support.
> 
> BTW, I did a one shot on Sunday, if you haven't checked it out, you may want to. Also, BTW, this is the part of my A/N where I encourage you to say hi on Twitter. So, there. that's checked off the list.
> 
> This is your captain speaking.
> 
> Update: 3/7 - Just a quick note that I won't be updating for a couple of weeks. Sorry about the delay. Will post again starting on March 21.

**Garden of Heroes**

Chapter 4: Of Tricking Prophecies and Escaping Queens

 _._ _..discoveries of trade routes to the east have made journeys that used to be all but impossible take two months. The people in the east flourish and they are eager for novelties and free with coin. Boats from Whitranni that carry spices and cloth are greedily met and cargo sells out within an hour. The right captain and merchant could be as rich as Fief Lord in a few months. My phrasing is not accidental. The changes this could bring to our kingdom are without precedent. How long do you think we have before the nobility, or even worse, the queen takes charge of it all?_

_\-- Captain James Mersal_

 

The entrance to the Forbidden Fortress was carved into the base of the Blackheart Mountains. The cream-colored stones were stained with red here and there; legend said with blood, but did not agree on whose. There were many possibilities: a sacrifice to the dragon witch, Maleficient, enemies who tried to storm her castle, or explorers who'd wanted to plunder it.  

 

The barbican that framed the large iron gate was part of the mountain, but the thin, black iron spires that rose from it decidedly weren't. There were yet more stories about where they  had come from. The twelve spires of differing height, arranged in no logical order, were sharp enough at their tips to spear a body, people said. Everyone agreed they had once been used for exactly that without remembering when.

 

Past the gate, two hundred broad steps rose to a clearing in the mountain range, level and paved, open to the sky. A large statue of a dragon greeted those who ascended. It stood on its hind legs, large maw opened to whoever approached, face contorted in rage. Before it, knelt two stone skeletons, their heads bowed as they clasped stone swords. To the right, more stairs curled against the side of the mountain as it sloped farther upward into the clouds. Any brave soul who came that far would have to climb six thousand and one steps. At the top there were three interconnected towers with jagged spires similar to the ones at the entrance. Mammoth double doors were the final barrier. Each made of stone and affixed with a wrought iron symbol of a sleeping dragon.  

 

No one came to her by accident. Most left her to her solitude. For a long time, only two beings dared come to her uninvited. One was Regina....

 

The other...

 

“Been wanting to have a chat with you for awhile.” Rumplestiltskin's voice came before his appearance in one of the high-back chairs she used for tea. Both velvet chairs were covered with white sheets before he had magick’d himself into one. Now, they and a side table near them were ready for use. A silver tray appeared holding a teapot and two steaming cups.

 

Maleficent had been expecting him. She stroked the head of her pet unicorn, born only a few weeks ago. "I had errands to attend to.”

 

“Really?” His smile contained no real mirth. “Must have been quite a distance from here, since I looked and couldn't find you." She sat across from him, regally, her back straight and fingers folded in her lap. "It's been what, over twenty years?" He pointed to the tea tray. A small pitcher of milk and a dish of sugar cubes appeared. He dropped sugar into a cup and stirred almost delicately. “I thought maybe you were avoiding me.”

 

Her expression held fast to a careful boredom. "Of course you did. You're a man, and naturally you think the world revolves around you." She patted her leg to get the baby unicorn's attention. He trotted over, nuzzling her hand as she gave him a sugar cube. "You came to ask me about the crown, I suppose?"

 

"Such a powerful artifact that no one's ever heard of. I searched hundreds and hundreds of tombs. No mention. Makes me curious about how you came into possession of it."

 

She fixed him with a knowing look, arching one eyebrow. “It has been a bit, but don’t you normally offer something when you want something?”

 

“We'll come back to that one." He lifted a hand to his chest in a show of mock-chagrin. "I'm being rude. I should ask what's new with you and compliment you on your new...." he motioned to the unicorn, "friend. Offer to share all the latest gossip. I hear...Regina traded the dark curse away for a crown. Now, your turn."  

 

She sighed. "I can't help you find it."

 

“Can’t or won’t?”

 

“That curse is an abomination. So, I hid it and then —" She smiled at him, placid. “— I took a memory potion to forget where I put it. I honestly have no idea where it is.” She met his eyes. “I've watched you play the long game, so many plans and manipulations. For years. And poor Regina, you twisted her life and her heart. As did her mother."  

 

He surged to his feet, his hands seizing the arms of her chair as he leaned over her. “Are you telling me you interfered with my business on purpose? That means you owe me one. Don't worry, I've already thought of how you're going to make it up to me."

 

The unicorn bleated at him. "I agree, Concord, he's a horrible houseguest. I interfered so that you and I could come to an arrangement. I need your help with something, and now, you need mine."

 

He straightened, drawing away. "I would suggest you get to the point. Your debt to me grows the more you waste my time."

 

"Regina helped me let go of the past once. Before her heart was dark. Believe it or not, I care whether she dies. And if your plan works, she will."

 

"But that's her fate. You can't really blame the prophecy on me, dearie. Unless you're saying —" he extended his hands as if presenting himself "— I'm the author. Sadly, I'm not." He canted his head. "And I don't think you care about her at all. You want something from her." Maleficent didn't answer and he giggled. "I'm right, aren't I?"

 

"I need her to do something. Something that must be done in the Whitranni Kingdom."

 

"The time for that is quickly running out."

 

"Regina already knows Emma Swan's plans. At least to a degree."

 

In the entire time she had known him, she had rarely seen him express an honest emotion. Now, his jaw clenched and eyes widened. "How do you know?"

 

"I assure you it wasn't my doing," she said quietly. "We can help one another. You seek a way to a land without magic, right? Why you would go to such a place is a mystery to me. But, you want to destroy the crown because you know the destruction of an extremely powerful magical item can create a tear between worlds. You need me because it could destroy both worlds unless the tear is mended quickly, and dragon claws have remarkable healing properties." She rose and came towards him, Concord following at her heels. "I need Regina alive until she does what I need her to do. So I thought, I wonder if, when it comes to a prophecy, you can cheat. Just a little. Just enough. When Emma fails tomorrow, she'll come to you for help. I want you to create a spell for her. I will also want a copy of that same spell, just in case Regina comes to me. In return, I will give you one of my claws."

 

Rumpelstiltskin went back to his chair and sat, propping his feet up on an ottoman that appeared as he stretched his legs. "Tell me more."

 

#############################################

 _Don't turn and look, don't turn and look, don't turn and look_ , Emma repeated to herself over and over as she entered the banquet hall. She could see the shadow of her mother's statue on the stairs. Her mind reached for it, trying to satisfy long held curiosities. To look upon her mother's face, not just an image or a painting. To see her up close.

 

Last night, Ruby told them about the first night she worked in the palace. She'd snuck into the alcove where Snow's statue was. She cried, knees shaking so badly that it was all she could do to stay standing. She'd quickly climbed onto the pedestal and given Snow's hand a light kiss.

 

The bottle of whatever they'd been drinking in her room at the tavern had been empty by then. Emma wasn't sure anyone else except her was awake to hear.  

 

Sometimes when people spoke about emotional moments, she wanted to ask questions:

 

_How could a statue make you cry when you knew she'd be a statue? Why did you kiss her hand? Why would you take such a risk when it might mean the whole plan would be discovered?_

 

Now, feeling her mother's stare as she was announced, she wondered basic things, like how tall her mother was. Or, if she would be able to spot familiar features on Snow's face. In some portraits, she thought they had a similar chin and cheekbones. It was strictly intellectual. Inside, her stony heart was as unmoved as ever. She wondered, if they succeeded, what her first emotion would be. If she would want nothing more than to run to her mother and fall into her arms, or if she'd feel so much that she wouldn't be able to move at all.

 

She passed Grumpy, standing at the back of the room with other entertainers. He was dressed in a gold, black, and red tunic and tights. He also wore a hat with a protruding point that flopped over his face and was capped with a bell. He hated his costume and had said as much many, many times. He had been juggling until the tributes to the queen began. As he caught Emma’s eyes, he mouthed “you got it."  

 

 _"Focus up, Emma,"_ Taz said in her head. _"That was from August. We're up above you watching."_

 

She presented her gift and started her verbal dance with the queen. Taz, true to his word, left her alone for most of her conversation. She did okay, she thought. The conversation engaged her in a way very little ever had. It pushed her to think fast, to defend and attack. She could appreciate the challenge of it — of her, truth be told.  

 

She'd only really gotten stuck once. _"Emma,"_ Taz shrieked, beside himself with horror. _"What did you just say?"_

 

_"I — she said that her power is absolute. And I said...shit, Taz. I said, 'what does it mean when a queen feels they have to constantly remind their kingdom of that?' Why the hell did I....I was just answering her, you know? We were sorta going back and forth and I just...that's what came into my head. She's going to kill me now, right?"_

 

Her faithful friend had managed to come up with a reply. He gave her a fair warning before she parroted his words. _"This has a fifty percent chance of making this much better or so much worse."_

 

Luck was with them. The queen calmed.

 

And then she surprised Emma by getting far too close and whispering about passion.  

 

The heat of Regina's cheek made her own tingle. Just another half inch and they'd make contact. She felt the suggestion of a light caress down her face, or two fingers catching the silver necklace she wore, and pulling her in. It hit her like an ambush, striking her hard before she could defend herself. Her body felt heavier, as if gravity had changed or she was tied down, and it took more effort to move, to breathe, to open her mouth and wet her lips.  

 

 _"Well, she's....quite something,"_ Taz said.

 

 _"She's the enemy,"_ Emma answered automatically while she ordered her body to settle down.

 

_"A sensual temptress of an enemy."_

 

Unbidden, Emma watched the queen move, as if she knew all eyes were on her and relished it. Encouraged it. And okay — enough. She'd experienced lust before. It didn't usually give her more than a moment's pause. It was biological. Simple primal urges.  

 

She sat next to the queen at her invitation, taking a long drink of water to distract herself.

 

“Honored guests,” Regina said. “The rest of the tributes can wait a moment." She glanced over her shoulder to a servant. “Make sure everyone’s glass is filled. I have an announcement to make."

 

The wine bearers entered the room and filled Regina’s goblet first. Wine almost sloshed out of the cup as it was poured. The queen's chalice instantly captured Emma’s attention. She glanced to the back of the room, and Grumpy nodded his head slightly.

 

She took the pitcher of wine from the servant. "Why not leave this?" she suggested. She added a little more wine to her glass, then carefully set it down in front of Regina's glass. There, it would, with any luck, prevent others from seeing what she was about to do. She eased open the hidden pouch in her belt. No one seemed to be watching her. She uncorked the vial, leaving the cork in the pouch, and stole a glance towards the queen.

 

The queen rose to her feet. "Our friend Lady Tristeep observed that the role of a leader is to look toward the future, to help prepare for it,” Regina said. “It is an interesting point, although impossible when people insist on clinging to the past." She paused. "When they meet in secret to discuss the downfall of their one true leader.” Her smile, beautiful, if cold in its normal state, became a sneer. “But, I understand hope. You hope the savior will come. That she will kill me, and all of you will be free from my dark, hideous magicks that have tormented you so. The way I cause every illness in the entire kingdom, every disaster, every misfortune.”

 

Emma focused on the wine again. In the back of her head, her instincts screamed that something had gone wrong with the plan. She just wasn’t sure what. A group of guards entered, blocking the stairs. She caught sight of Ruby behind them, shaking her head in confusion, unsure what was happening. Murmurs began all around the room.

 

“You have never considered the possibility that what you are waiting for will never happen. That you have only me. That I will be your queen for your whole lives and your children's and your children's children. What will you do, I wonder, when your savior fails you? When I defeat her. Any thoughts?”

 

Emma lifted the potion toward Regina’s glass. Whatever was happening, they’d all agreed they probably only had one shot at this. She tilted her wrist.  

 

“No one?” Regina asked. “What about you —” She turned toward Emma, her hand clamping down on Emma’s. “Savior?”

 

All her life, emotion had seemed a wide chasm away. She could only stare at the other side, unable to reach it. Now, suddenly, like vision restored to sightless eyes, there was a pounding of new sensations inside her. She didn't understand at first, didn't know what it was. She tried to sort through the rapid-fire reactions but they were going too fast, a flurry. Until one feeling rose above the others.  

 

Danger. The ferocity of not wanting to die. The terror clawed at her, her palms sweating, body refusing to move. Fuck. Her eyes darted around the room searching for escape routes — there or there, maybe there? Run! Move. Her heart jolted, stopped, and was kicked into motion again.  

 

Regina did not release her but reached for her crown with her free hand.

 

The queen’s fingers bit into her skin...

 

The queen. The fucking queen who’d taken everything from her. Her body flushed with heat. The black ooze began to flow from the crown, pooling at Emma’s feet. Near her right hand on the table, a thin knife, part of the cutlery lay in reach. Maybe she could kill the queen, before the magic transformed her. Hurt the queen. Kill her. She could. She should.

 

She heard the queen give a startled “What? Why isn’t it working?” The magic coming from the crown had stopped, it crawled away from Emma, receding sluggishly back toward the Crystal Crown. In one motion, Emma’s fingers found purchase on the knife and she burst to her feet. She jabbed the point to Regina’s throat.  

 

Her mother wrote her twenty-eight letters. Every one ended with words of love. What she’d lost swelled inside her, ugly and waiting to consume her. Her mother. She turned her head and looked at her, the statue on bent knees, fingers steepled to cover her mouth as if she'd seen something that had horrified her. The queen's entertainment.  

 

She pressed harder on the blade, Regina's skin indented now with the pressure.  

 

“Emma!” She heard August shout from above. Taz plunged toward the queen's table, becoming a sword as he reached it, stabbing in the wood directly in front of Emma.   

 

_"I think this would be called a 'wine and dash'. Wouldn't you agree?"_

 

Taz.

 

Her friends. The terrified nobles. The kingdom.  

 

She jerked away from the queen and climbed onto her chair, then the table. The disconnected sensation returned. It staggered her, and she had to take in a deep breath to weather it, to prevent herself from falling. She pulled Taz free with one hand and pushed one finger of her other hand into the opening of the vial to seal it. She kicked a whole platter of pork at the queen, clutched the potion to her chest and jumped.

 

She landed entirely on one side. The collision with the ground like being pounded by sledgehammers. Half her body trembled in pain, but she crawled under the middle banquet table as fast as she could. The guards came for her, shoving nobles from their seats. Close quarters, too little room to use Taz's speed.  

 

Near her, one of the nobles had stayed seated and she heard the voice of Arhona Amina Emerlas cry out, "You're hurting me. I'm just an old woman. I can't move so fast."

 

It had given her a few extra seconds of protection, and right now she needed all she could get.  

 

“Stop her, you idiots,” yelled the queen, her dress now stained with brown sauce.  

 

As Emma emerged from the other side of the table, many unfriendly hands grabbed for her.

 

Shit, she needed room.  

 

Taz turned from a sword to an owl. He beat his wings hard, soaring high then swooping down toward one of the guards, claws extended toward his face. In the next moment there was a deep _thunk_ and a soldier fell to his knees, a dagger in his chest. Grumpy took a position on the stairs and let a second dagger fly. August joined him and tore off his helm and the black screen covering it. He aimed his crossbow and fired, pinning the sword arm of another attacker. He re-loaded his weapon and cocked it as quickly as he could. Taz arced in a circle, made another attack on a guard, then landed in Emma's hand, a sword once more.  

 

She rose, using Taz's speed to join her friends, who were making their stand at the top of the stairs. Near Grumpy, Ruby took her wolf form, her powerful frame and back rising to the height of their shoulders as she snarled.

 

Emma, moving several times as fast as everyone else, put the stopper on the bottle and placed it back in her pouch.  

 

The guards regrouped quickly and surrounded them. She used the speed Taz gave her. She slashed through one guard, who barely had time to recognize an attack was coming, much less try to counter it. She dropped the magic to return to her normal pace and shouted, “Let's go!”

 

A guard charged toward Ruby but Emma used Taz again. To her, while using Taz's magic, his movements came in tiny stutters of motion. Emma was able to reach him and plunged her blade into his side. Sliding the sword free, she brought her arm back and slashed at another guard closing in on her left. She could clear a path for them if she continued in the rush of abnormal time she now existed in. She cleaved another of Regina's men behind his knee. She ducked a barely moving swing and shoved another guard towards his compatriot's arching blade.  

 

She slowed again to real time. Now with a path out, she pushed August towards escape. The others followed. She sped up again, moving after them, then she curved wide

 

Her eyes flicked to the statue of her mother.

 

 _There was no time for this,_ she thought.

 

But, her mother was about her height.  Long fingers pressed over her face.  Emma could see the stones of the alcove through her mother's crystal body. It made her seem less real, like a ghost watching the room.  

 

_No time._

 

She glanced back at the queen. Her mouth moved in degrees, probably shouting a command to kill her. What had happened? How had she suddenly felt things?  

 

No time, and this time she forced herself to go. They fought their way through to the courtyard, with Emma adjusting her speed whenever guards overwhelmed them.  

 

"We split up and we meet you know where," August reminded them, gritting his teeth and hauling himself into the saddle of a horse tied off nearby. Ruby leaped onto a guard and tore his throat as he flailed and screamed. Muzzle still bloody, the animal looked at Emma, head titling in a expression resembling concern. Ruby had made sure, long ago, that her wolf knew her friends, knew their scent and that they were not to be harmed. She could understand simple things in her animal shape.  

 

Grumpy climbed on her back and held on tight, fists clenching her fur.

 

"Go," Emma said to all of them. "I'm right behind you." She cut down the guards nearest to the iron gate, trying to make sure they weren't trapped inside.  

 

############################################

 

Emma tore through the woods on horseback, stopping every now and again to check if she was being followed. Nothing. As the entrance to the caverns came into view, she stopped. She swung around wildly, pointing her sword in every direction. Still no sign of pursuit. Her eyes checked the area again. Sweat dripped down her face. No unusual sounds. No movement. She kept her blade in hand and jogged to the entrance. It was narrow and easy to miss. The twenty foot corridor was dimly lit by torches. She squeezed inside. It opened up a little after a few feet, but not much. Close quarters. It inclined sharply at the end.

 

She followed the path into a huge cave. Thieves had used these caverns for generations. They installed traps, hollowed out tunnels and turned small caves into much larger ones. Emma had traveled the tunnels that connected to this one and extended into the Moon Forest many times. She knew to stick to the mapped out passages. There were a thousand legends about what lived in these caves, though Emma had never encountered anything beyond bats and rodents.  

 

From the ceiling came the press of stalactites of all sizes. Many were long, reminding her of icicles, and made the room feel claustrophobic in places. Columns of rock were throughout the room stretching from floor to ceiling. Their shape and color reminded her of petrified tree trunks. From somewhere came the sound of dripping, sometimes long pauses apart, sometimes fast taps and sometimes in concert. On one side of the room were dozens of crates and supplies, left behind by miners, or thieves or rebels. On the other side of the cavern near the wall, there was a hole shaped almost like a keyhole in the floor. It dropped off into a bottomless pit. Or that's what it seemed to be, Emma had never known anyone who'd tried their luck with finding how far down it went.  

 

On the ground, the perimeter of the room had stalagmites clustered together in bunches. Some were small, some large. Thieves and miners had smoothed out the floor in the center of the cave, but hadn't bothered to fight more of the rock than they had to.

 

“Oh Savior,” came a sing-song voice behind her, and she spun just in time to see purple smoke as Regina appeared. A fireball burned in the queen's hand. Emma dashed behind a rock formation.  

 

"I escaped you and more than twenty guards at your palace, Your Majesty. Do you really think you can catch me?"  

 

Flames licked around the rocks in front of her before they shattered. Emma was forced to seek shelter behind a stack of crates, that likewise exploded into splinters.  

 

Emma faced the queen, twirling her sword.  

 

"Please, you think that sword is going to help you against me? The day I cursed your family, there were hundreds of guards. They didn't last long."

 

"Your crown worked on them though, right?"  

 

Regina's face flared with anger. She lifted both hands and sent two fireballs hurling towards Emma. Emma ducked one and instinctively raised her sword to defend against the other. It hissed as it struck Taz's steel, then the blade turned blue and the fire fizzled into smoke.  

 

 _"Son of a bitch,"_ Emma muttered. _"You didn't tell me you could do that,"_ she said to Taz. _"Is that the third power?"_

 

_"No, I'm just very, very useful in many ways."_

 

Another fiery blast from the queen's hand ended the conversation as Emma pressed behind a column.

 

There was a game Emma had played as a child, where one person was blindfolded before trying to tag anyone they could. The rest of the children gathered around in a circle, dodging and jumping forward and back to avoid being tagged. The queen's fireballs came one after another, trying to "tag" her in an extremely final way.  

 

Emma tried to keep moving.

 

The queen spoke before each attack:

 

"This is for making me chase you for twenty-eight years."

 

"This is for all the goods you stole from me."

 

"And this is for Rocinante!"

 

Emma had sought refuge behind a small cluster of stalagmites. Crouching, she craned her head over them so she could look at the queen. "To be fair, I think you actually won that one. That horse is a hellbeast."

 

"He's alive?"

 

"Well, yeah, I'm not evi — "  

 

Another flaming ball sizzled through the air, and this time she blocked it with her sword. Grumpy always had taught her that if she was overpowered, she should run first, then, if that didn't work, fight like hell. She leapt over the rocks in front of her, raising her blade and moving to within reach of the queen. She lunged, pushing forward with her back foot in a blaze of speed. She struck something she couldn't see and the blow bounced away harmlessly just a few inches short of the queen. A shield of some kind. She tried again, turning her wrist and slashing toward at Regina's side. Again, she hit something unseen. She dropped Taz's speed and circled, trying to figure out what to do next.  

 

Regina turned her hand palm up and ropes appeared, binding her tight. Emma used her speed and hacked herself free.

 

Regina stalked a few feet from her, snarling in frustration. "Enough of this. You and your entire family have been an affliction in my life for far, far too long. After you are dead I am going to have a celebration throughout the entire kingdom. Then, I'm going to melt down that sword and make a small statue of you. I'll put it right next to your mother. That is, if your body is ever found."

 

Emma tried to work out what exactly that meant and then she noticed that the queen was looking at the stalactites directly above her.

 

“No wait,” Emma’s voice rang out in echoes that went on and on as the roof above her began to buckle. She dodged out of the way, but the rumbling above continued. “Shit.”   

 

Debris began to fall in small trails of dust. Then came a loud, sharp crack.  

 

The ceiling tumbled down upon them, some of the falling rocks the size of horses. The ground began to shake, then collapsed beneath her.  

 

 


	6. Of Mysterious Bridges with Cryptic Signs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday everyone,
> 
> Didja miss me?
> 
> The plane will be circling over the Caverns of Soras for a bit. Champagne will be passed out by flight attendants in Evil Panda costumes to celebrate Swanqueen’s recent win of the Zimbio March Madness poll. The in-flight movie will be ‘In Ya Face’ which is a sequel to the blockbuster hit, ‘F--- the Polls, dude.’ Meryl Streep putting in a particularly moving performance in that one.
> 
> Sit back, ready yourself for puns at the end and enjoy!
> 
> This is your captain speaking.
> 
> Update: 3/29  
> It's frustrating to me to feel like I am letting you down. A week ago my laptop died. Getting the new one and getting it up and running has taken almost the entire week. Also, wife/I are also going to her parents for Passover for a few days. 
> 
> So, it will be another couple of weeks. 
> 
> REALLY sorry about that, gang.

******_  
_ ** **Of Mysterious Bridges with Cryptic Signs**

 

_My dear daughter,_

_I wish for you a love that challenges, inspires, and provokes you to do wonderful things. For your heart to be wholly offered because you can do nothing less. I want to tell you the story of how I met your father. It’s safe to say that we didn't like each other at first. I didn’t like him much at first. He had this annoying habit of surprising me, even though I was sure I was beyond being surprised by anyone._

 

  * __Snow White Gealban__



 

 

Regina’s memory told her that the savior appeared after the banquet was over. She had been so surprised that she must have been unable to use the crown. Insistent as a heartbeat was the thought that she couldn’t have used the crown.

 

She couldn’t have.

 

That idea repeated itself yet again. The crown could not fail. For if it did, what would that mean? If the savior was immune to it, her future could only end in her death, as willed by a prophecy that mocked her. A symbol of a world that steadfastly denied her of anything that would make her happy, no matter what she did.

 

Blackness surrounded her and carried her through time like a dark sea.

 

What she had: her kingdom, her life, her collections, and that strange vision of a child she couldn’t quite bring herself to trust or dismiss. Her crown allowed for these things. Protected them.

 

Slowly, voices floated towards her. She couldn’t tell how close they were.

 

A male voice asked a question, “Could you leave her to die?”

 

“I want to save my parents. That makes that question moot.”

 

A fluttering sound above her. “That is not an answer.” The man’s voice boomed this time.

 

He was immediately shushed. “Can you not wake up sleeping beauty over there? If, like you said, that crown has a radius and it needs to be in the palace for —”

 

He interrupted, “Just a guess. Your father handed you to Grumpy. He was in the curse’s area of effect but Grumpy wasn’t, which is why you survived. If casting the curse only worked within a certain distance, maybe the same will be true when the crown is broken.”

 

She knew they were real, not a dream. Her foggy mind reached for meaning — who was speaking? Did she know them? What were they talking about?

 

She tried to move her arm and only her fingers twitched. Panic scratched at her, but her training forced her to take a deep breath, collecting herself. Rumpelstiltskin toyed with her emotions in many ways while he taught her magic. Fear and belittlement were two of his favorite tactics.

 

She had learned control.

 

Her chest moved in and out. Measured. She curled her hand and blinked her eyes open. A circle of light was a few feet away but around her the darkness was deep.

 

“My point is that I don’t think we can do anything other than try and keep her alive. Not if I want to break the curse. So that’s my plan: all three of us get out. We’ll get some rest then...“

 

Regina’s leg didn’t feel right. Too heavy. She tried to move it. A jolt of pain created a shock wave through her body, tensing every muscle. She gasped.

 

A female figure rushed into view, crouching over her. “Hey.”

 

“My leg,”

 

A careful hand pushed up the fabric of her gown. A torch held above her made her eyes narrow until she adjusted to its soft light.

 

“It’s really bruised,” said the woman, still blurry and shadowed.

 

Regina’s skin pricked with cold. Her forehead was damp. Again, she tried to bend her leg to rise. A sharp stabbing sensation wracked over her and made her body freeze. Her fingers explored the ground, trying to make sense of things...sand? More stirrings of panic made her pulse hammer in her veins. She was trembling. From cold? Or pain?

 

“Whoa, easy,”

 

She recognized the face and the voice now. The savior. Their eyes met and she instinctively reached for her magic to try and hurl the savior away from her. Instead of her power answering, her brow pulsed and her stomach tightened.

 

The gown was adjusted back into place, covering her. “Okay listen, I want to test something. I need to see how bad your leg is.”

 

A light touch, but it was like nails being driven through skin and into bone. A hesitation and then more fingertips smoothing below her knee, exploring over the fabric. This time she cried out.

 

“Okay, one more.”

 

Slight pressure, but the flash of pain was so bright that she felt acid in her stomach bubble. She couldn’t be sick, she insisted to her body. Not here. Not in front of the savior.

 

“I think it’s broken,” the savior said.

 

“What did you do?”

 

The savior’s eyes jumped to her face. “Technically, you did it.” Her green eyes were intense with thought. “Didn’t feel any bone through the skin. That’s good.”

 

Regina couldn’t stop shivering.

 

A moment later, a blanket was placed over her. The fabric scratched at her skin, but she pulled it around her tightly. The same material was underneath her, she realized. It offered no real protection against the unrelenting stone that made her back ache.

 

She tried to ask more questions, demand answers, but her tongue felt too big, too heavy. Fight, always fight, especially when things seemed their worst. She tried to ignore the nausea climbing up her throat as her temples throbbed. Her eyes fluttered closed.

 

“Your Majesty? Still with me? I think she’s fading.”

 

The savior seemed to be alone. Who could she have been talking to?

 

She knew the Crystal Crown would help her heal...She realized that she didn’t feel its weight on her head. “My…”

 

Blackness pulled her back in its depths again.

 

Regina drifted. It didn’t feel like more than a moment, but her embedded sense of time told her it had been longer, without quantifying further. She opened her eyes again. The savior was sitting near a fire made of jagged pieces of wood, like she had smashed something.

Her crown. She gritted her teeth to stop her herself from frantically patting at her head.

 

Dark magic wasn’t meant to heal. The crown was most certainly born of black enchantment, but it could. Once she had cut her hand with a knife while making a potion. Later, when she had put on the crown to meet with a lord, the wound sealed but left a tiny scar.

 

She didn’t feel the itching and discomfort she usually did when the crown was far away. Where was it? Nearby on the ground? Buried by debris?

 

She heard voices again as her eyes fluttered open.

 

“There’s something here,” the man she couldn’t see said. “Something powerful and very old. It grows stronger near the river.”

 

“Something in the water?” asked the savior.

 

“I don’t think so. But it’s disquieting. It’s like it’s asking me question after question but…I can’t quite hear it. I know you wanted me to explore the other side of the bridge today, but perhaps I could start by flying down our side of the river?

 

Regina tried another spell, some internal warning bell telling her it was the most important thing to focus on. Something small and unnoticeable. She attempted to conjure a small gust of wind. Nothing happened. She tried again and clenched her muscles as if to force her magic free. She gasped at the agonizing pressure in her head.

 

She needed…

 

She lost consciousness again.

 

#############################################

 

Taz had been very quiet for two days. It made everything feel “off”.

 

Throughout her life, Emma had gotten used to, and then come to rely on, his incessant chatter

Since they’d landed here, he had done everything she asked of him, but he rested frequently and barely spoke. She kept asking him if he was okay, even though she knew the answer. He had told her there was some kind of presence here.

 

The only thing she could think of was to keep offering him water. It made her remember all the times, when faced with the emotions of others, that he had coached her on how to react.

 

 _Put your arm around her, Emma,_ when Ruby sat beside her, crying over a broken heart.

 

 _Tell him that he’s right,_ when Grumpy finished railing about an argument he’d had with Granny.

 

And so on.

 

“You okay?” she asked Taz and passed him the small iron pot they’d been using to bring water from the river nearby.

 

Without his cheerful commentary, only occasional moans of wind, drips from stalactites and soft ripples of water broke the quiet. The absence of sound was strange enough to make her muscles tense and her mind overly alert.

 

“I’m sorry, little bit,” he said. “Just tired.”

 

The cave they’d landed in connected to this one, much larger, with a hole in the ceiling that let in daylight. On the far side of the cavern was a river about twenty feet across.

 

Three tunnels led away from the room.

 

Taz used his night vision to survey them: one led up and stopped at ledge overlooking the river. Another ended at a small, round cave, where they found the remains of clay and iron pots. A few pick axes were propped against the wall, but the wood of two of them all but disintegrated when Emma touched them. The third had a handle made from a different type of wood that was a deep orange-brown color and very smooth to the touch. It had been painted in a clear coating, cracking and peeling in places.

 

The last tunnel again ascended like the first had, but it led to a rope bridge suspended across the river. The slats were the same coppery wood they’d found at the dead end. There was a sign on their side, but Emma couldn’t read the language.

 

“Maybe we can wait on exploring the other side of the bridge till tomorrow,” Emma said. “You said you thought the power was stronger over there.”

 

“The docks I found upriver give us hope of a way out,” he answered quietly and drank again. “I saw trees and daylight before our bond started to strain. But with your arm as it is and the queen losing consciousness…”

 

“Maybe I can swim a little.” Emma tested her right arm and immediately regretted it, flinching.

 

Emma’s shoulder simmered with pain when she didn’t move it and grew into a fiery beast when she did. As she fell, she’d activated Taz’s speed and jammed the sword into the rockwall. It had skidded down but eventually caught, jerking her hard.  Blinding pain hit her shoulder. She had managed to hold on but her right shoulder took the brunt of her weight She’d switched hands and dangled. She spotted a ledge a few feet down and dropped to it. The rest was a matter of slowly making her way down. Down had been a lot closer than up. She could still move her shoulder, it just hurt. A lot.

 

Probably just a bad strain. It would hinder her for at least a week or so, which was far from ideal. Still, it could have been worse, and the pain in her arm distracted her from the hunger hollowing out her stomach.

 

“We could wait another couple of days and see how your arm is,” Taz suggested.

 

“When the queen completely comes to, our lives are going to become much harder. I think we have to cross the bridge as soon as we can. I know you said the power is stronger on that side, but the tunnels there might hook up with the ones by the dock or lead to their own exit.”

 

“I don’t know.” For one of the few times ever, he sounded worried. “Emma, you asked me about the sign by the bridge and if I could read it?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I was hoping we could find another way besides the bridge. What it says is a bit of a cliche in my opinion. It’s in Gisdara, one of the first written languages. Sorcerers, witches, and warlocks study it because many ancient tombs and spells are written in that language. It says, ‘This way to agony and death.’”

 

Emma shook her head. “So, it’s our only immediate way out, and there’s an ominous sign that talks about death. Our luck sucks.” He was too tired to answer. She could not remember him ever needing her. Not really. Not the way she relied on him for guidance and to hear her secrets. “It couldn’t have said this way to all the cake you can eat?”

 

The joke made him brighten. “This way to endless, full-bodied kegs of ale.”

 

They talked a little more about how they might approach the situation and came up with a general plan.

 

Soon after, Taz’s eye drooped. He walked up her thigh to her stomach, then curled up there. “I just need to rest a little.”

 

She cupped him in her hand, frowning. The longer they stayed here, the more drained

he seemed.

 

She carried him back to their campsite and laid him in the single blanket she’d laid claim to. She’d given two of the three blankets to the queen, thinking she needed to be as warm as possible, given her injuries.

 

After she set him down, she checked on her.

 

There had been supplies in the main cave at the entrance to the caverns. Both rebels and thieves kept certain goods handy: dried and salted meat and oats that could be made into a thick, clumpy cereal by adding water. They kept casks of wine, blankets, and torches handy, too. The idea was to be able to disappear into the caves for a couple of weeks, if a place to hide was needed.

 

But now things were grim. Taz had flown up and dragged blankets to the opening, letting them fall down. He had also collected their one torch and shards of wood from broken crates, but a good portion of the main cave was buried in rubble.

 

There was plenty of water, thanks to the nearby river, but no food. Emma didn’t know anything about these tunnels; none of the maps she’d ever seen mentioned a river.

 

Regina made a soft sound, Emma couldn’t tell if it was a word or not.

 

Yesterday, the queen woke a few times, asking for water and her crown, but their interactions were short before she lost consciousness again. Emma tended to her and kept guard over her.

 

Given Taz’s theory that the power of the crown was limited by distance, their plan was to get the queen back to the surface and closer to the palace while she was still groggy from her injuries. The potion hidden in Emma’s belt somehow had remained intact and, if they were lucky, they could still slip it to her and make her break the crown.

 

Emma watched her as she slept. It could not be denied that she was beautiful. The tattoo framing her eye, sharp crystals pointing outward from it like a star, added to the sense of danger she projected. But it did not detract from her perfectly arched eyebrows, her high cheekbones and the faint hints of bronze in her skin tone.

 

She had started to tell Taz about what happened at the banquet — that moment when she had felt things. But he was exhausted and, when she checked Regina’s leg, over her gown, she felt nothing. Perhaps it had nothing to do with Regina at all. There were too many questions and they needed to focus on survival.

 

Emma trudged up the tunnel in the larger cavern that led to the bridge. It swayed but did nothing more ominous than that. She stared at the sign and the five words on it, painted sloppily, as if in a hurry. The paint at the edges of the words flaked, but the rest, though faded, remained intact.

 

She tested the ropes that held it in place. They were as thick as her wrist and showed only hints of fraying. Instinctively she looked up, catching a movement out of the corner of her eye. Bats, hundreds of them roosting far above. She imagined heaving rocks at them to see if she could bludgeon a few for dinner, but she doubted that would work. Also, she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to eat bat meat. She decided that thinking about food they didn’t have wasn’t helpful and went back to camp.

 

Once there, Emma adjusted the blanket around the queen. She shifted and cried out in pain, eyes wide and frantic.

 

“Whoa, easy, Your Majesty,” Emma said and scuttled towards her. “Take it slow.”

 

“Where am I,” Her voice was thready. She raised a hand in front of her to prevent Emma from coming any closer.  “Savior.”

 

Emma sat back, making no further moves that might upset the queen. “I’m gonna stay here, okay? What do you remember? Do you remember the cave collapsing?” Her voice was calm, the way she’d learned to speak when robbing caravans to prevent panic.

 

“I remember the banquet. You attacked me after everyone left.”

 

Emma’s brow wrinkled. “Well, no. That’s not quite what happened. Do you remember chasing me and then trying to kill me?”

 

“You tried to kill me.”

 

“Let’s put a stopper in that one. We fell about fifteen feet or so. At least we kinda did. Taz says he saw you slow in midair and start floating down, but then you were hit with debris. Any of that ring a bell?”

 

“My head was hit?”

 

“Yeah, it was bleeding. We cleaned it up a little.”

 

The queen lifted her head with a groan, just enough so her fingers could probe. “There’s a bump.” She laid her head down again and stared at Emma a long moment. “My vision is blurry. There’s also something wrong with my leg.”

 

“We figured out yesterday it was broken. You don’t remember that either?”

 

As if to challenge Emma’s words, she tried to move her leg and hissed in pain.

 

Emma jumped up to try and stop her. “Look, you need to…”

 

“You stay back,” she snapped.

 

Even with a broken leg and a head injury, the queen could summon a commanding voice. It was impressive. Emma tried not aggravate her. “Okay,” she said. “Not moving.”

 

“If I have a concussion some of my memory might be missing or…altered. How long have we been here?”

 

“Two days.”

 

“Two?”

 

“You’ve been in and out of consciousness. Ironically, there was part of a rope ladder down here, and we used it to make a splint.”

 

Her hands patted at the wood immobilizing her leg. Then she raised her hand and turned her wrist slightly.

 

She did it again, the gesture more urgent. Her eyes glistened with tears and she swallowed several times.

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing.” Her voice was thick. She inhaled deeply, then said in a more normal tone, “My crown. It can help me heal.”

 

She felt a bump of their wills against one another that reminded of their discussion at the banquet. Something about talking to the queen made her mind move faster, feel readier. “Helping you heal isn’t really in my best interest right now.”

 

Regina’s eyes brightened, more awake, a flame flickering there. "My living isn’t in your best interest, yet here I am.”

 

“I do have a poultice I made out of bat guano I was about to put on your leg.” At her horrified expression, Emma relented. “Sorry. Joke.”

 

“You’re enjoying this.”

 

“Yeah, I’m going to recommend being stranded in a cave with your nemesis to all my friends.” Her voice was ironic, to emphasize the reality of their situation. “My friend Taz said that he thought your magic was pretty dark. That means you can’t heal yourself, right?”

 

The queen’s eyes hardened. “I don’t think this is the best time for me to give a class in magic fundamentals, do you?” She sighed heavily as if gathering her patience. “We don’t know how dangerous my injuries are. I assume that you kept me alive for a reason. Without my crown —”

 

Emma picked up the small iron pot that still had a little water and knelt by her. She tried to touch the back of Regina’s head but she twisted away violently. “Easy, I was just going to give you some water.”

 

“Then give it to me, do not lay your hands on me. And why would I drink anything you gave me after you tried to poison me?”

 

“Poison?”

 

The queen hesitated. “I don’t remember it clearly, but I know poison was involved.”

 

“Look, it’s just water.” She took a drink to prove it. “Tastes a little rusty, but we’ve all been drinking it.” Emma offered her the pot again. She took a long sip, paused just a moment and gulped down another mouthful.

 

“Why are you keeping me alive? You tried to kill me. What changed?”

 

“I wasn’t trying to kill you. I just want you to break the curse. You don’t need to die for that to happen.”

 

The queen blinked at her, mouth pressed in a thin line. “So, then, if you didn’t want to kill me, why the poison?” The timbre of her voice changed, breathing faster, voice more tense. “What was your plan? Did you think you could scare me? Maybe try and use the antidote as leverage?”

 

“It doesn’t matter.”

 

“The hell it doesn’t.”

 

“You brought the ceiling down on us and we fell. I have no idea where we are or how to get out. Your leg is broken and my arm is sprained. We have very few supplies. That’s what matters right now.”

 

Emma debated if the best tactic was to try and soothe the queen or to let her think about that reality for awhile. Probably the second one.

 

####################################################

 

Across from Regina, a creature sat up on a blanket that had been spread out on the cave floor.

 

She thought it was a bat at first, but then it tottered over to her.

 

“A bird,” she muttered. She raised her hand to swat it away.

 

“Hoooooo, hoooo,” it said, then it laughed quietly. “I’m just kidding. My name is Tazmaran Stolio, Your Majesty.” He bowed at the waist. “You may call me Taz.”

 

“It talks.”

 

“Taz is a friend,” the savior said. She passed him the water. “He’s been exploring the tunnels, trying to find a way out. We think the best way is to head over a wooden bridge nearby. We’ll all head across, and Taz will explore deeper in and find us a place to camp. He did find what might be a way out, but it’s pretty far up the river. We’re hoping to find a way to those tunnels.”

 

“Emma, we should tell her about the other matter.”

 

The savior spared him an uncertain expression and paused before speaking again. “Taz has been with me a long time. He came to me as a sword, and one of his powers is to…”

 

“He’s a magical item,” Regina realized. “He’s not alive.”

 

Taz huffed. “I beg your pardon.”

 

“He’s feeling another power in the caves. And he thinks it’s coming from across the river.”

 

“In other words, the direction we’ll be heading?”

 

“Pretty much.”

 

Regina wondered if the presence could be preventing her from using her magic. Perhaps, or perhaps it was just the head injury. “These caverns have always been rumored to have magicks and hauntings.”

 

“Taz and I were wondering, do you feel anything?”

 

“Perhaps it’s not in my best interest to answer that.”

 

“Right.” Emma said, tone bland. She had expected anger, but the savior seemed to be taking this entire situation in stride, never veering from an almost supernatural calm. “I’m going to start packing up.”

 

“Wait,” Regina lowered her eyes. Her voice changed, smaller and uncertain. “I’m hungry.”

 

Emma paused. “We don’t have any food. We don’t have much of anything. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” She gestured to the small pile of their supplies. Her voice was level and quiet. “That’s it. That’s what we’ve got.”

 

Regina had fought a war against Snow White. She realized now that, despite Snow’s defeat, she had never stopping fighting it. Her expectations of victory were so far removed from the reality of it, that she could not be sure she had won at all. She no longer knew how to measure it. Everything meant something and everything meant nothing, and her weary heart did not have the courage or desire to sort through it all.

 

Emma, though, was a tangible enemy; a destined adversary who would destroy her or be destroyed by her. It was heady being this close to her enemy. The challenge of it intrigued her. Given her injuries, she would have to depend on the savior in the short term, yet she would also need to defeat her. The more quickly her magic returned, the sooner she could truly end this.

Until then, she would refuse to forget that she was the queen and this was the savior.

 

Her eyes must have closed, because it became dark. Her body relaxed, sinking into sleep.

 

“She’s out again,” she barely heard the savior — her enemy — say.

 

“You are giving her the extra blanket again?”

 

“She’s hurt worse than I am.”

 

“You should rest, too.”

 

“My mind’s going. I’ll try.”

 

So bland, that voice, Regina thought. Not the cocky, spirited woman she had met at the banquet.

 

“Emma, I feel a bit on edge. Do you think exploring the caves is just a stab in the dark?”

 

A soft breath, a realization more than amusement. “I appreciate your sharp wit.”

 

Taz snorted. “That’s a cutting remark.”

 

“Do you think you can hack flying over the bridge tomorrow?”

 

“It’s important that I do, any way you slice it.”

 

The rhythm of the game Emma and Taz played lulled Regina into a choppy kind of sleep.


	7. Of Powerlessness and Swords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday everyone,  
> I should admit here (though I say this on Twitter all the time, also you should follow me because I am witty) that this story scares me to write. That's not really strange because Love Hack had its moments too. However, I've never written fantasy, or about caves or serious injuries, or had a 'hatecute' meeting in a story. I wonder and worry if the love story in my head will be as epic as the one I manage to write. I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate your support so very much. There are times, where literally, a comment or kudo helps me face a blank page with vigor instead of worry. 
> 
> In this chapter, we continue through the Caverns of Soros. There's some definite turbulence and we meet Flo. Flo gently discusses things with Regina and Emma after they cross the bridge while wearing unique headwear. 
> 
> Also, there's dark places and deals. 
> 
> Enjoy your glass of endless alcohol or your mug of endless random beverage.
> 
> This is your captain speaking.
> 
>  

 

**Garden of Heroes**

 

**_Of Powerlessness and Swords_ **

 

 

_It is said that after Muirgein killed her sister, she knew only despair. She wandered the world, seeking a way to restore her sister's child. For a time, dark creatures traveled with her. Legend says they were magic users she'd caught and twisted in her search for power. They are no more now and no one knows what became of them. But, some wonder if they are truly gone. Th_ _ere are noises that come from deep in the Caverns of Soras and those who journey to investigate what they are, never return.  For as long as there has been a Whitranni Kingdom and generations before that, the Caverns have been feared.   ---  Jole MallyScan, historian._

 

 

 

Even in sleep, Regina didn’t forget where she was. As she woke, her fingers patted at her head, immediately remembering the absence of her crown.

 

The savior wasn’t awake. Good. She kept trying, whenever the savior was distracted, to use her magic.

 

Her whole body felt bruised and the hard ground pressed into her uncomfortably, but it was manageable when she lay still. She ignored the pain and flicked her fingers and in the same moment sought her magic, commanding it to make the fire flare. 

 

It felt like a rusty saw cutting into her temple, a jagged pain. Her face contorted but she refused to release the cry creeping up her throat. The savior slept on the other side of the fire with her little creature, and Regina would not allow her enemy to see more vulnerabilities in her. 

She kept trying, weathering the pain as it grew until tears ran down her cheeks.

 

She brushed them away, annoyed and exhausted. 

 

She heard dripping sounds: one constant and fast, others that were lazier, flopping down and echoing. She pulled the blankets around her more tightly.

 

The savior shifted in her sleep. The bird slept on her stomach, burrowed in a small leather sack, his head and rabbit-like ears poking out. 

 

Regina sat up but it took effort, and sweat touched her back. The fire sometimes broke the inky darkness and cast shadows. The head of the pickaxe Emma had collected was distinct against the cave wall. It might serve as a crutch. She just didn’t know if she had the strength to crawl to it and pull herself up. 

 

Her crown, filled with a malicious presence, had always healed her if she wore it. It did so cruelly, for that was its nature, but she hadn’t had so much as a cold for years. It had been her companion for nearly thirty years. She knew it was near or she would feel the strain in the bond. She didn’t know where the savior had hidden it. 

  
  


The savior’s dress didn’t allow for much to be hidden on her person. Her makeshift sleeping pallet was too close to Regina, and she doubted the other woman would be that foolish.

 

She was helpless. 

 

Snow had caught her once, taken her prisoner and sentenced her. She hadn’t felt powerless, even then. Not since her mother. 

 

She had learned magic so she never had to feel this again. 

 

She estimated the pickaxe was ten feet away. Not that far. She darted a glance at the savior again. 

 

She pushed the blankets off and sat up. She carefully rolled to her “good” side, not the one with the broken leg. She reached forward, placing her forearm on the ground and pulling up, while pushing with her foot. 

 

She inched against the rocks, keeping her splinted leg as still as possible. She had read stories of tests that involved walking on hot coals. Both her leg and her side burned with that kind of excruciating heat.  

 

After a couple of feet, sweat rose against her spine. 

 

She dragged herself forward again. Her stomach reacted to the continuous pain by gurgling, and clenching. It heaved once but receded into a series of spasms, then stopped. She took a moment, leaning on both elbows, hoping for relief. She rested her forehead against the cool rocks and felt a prickling sensation at the back of her head, where the knot was. Darkness pushed itself towards her, heavy and ruthless, trying to drag her away from consciousness.

 

No.

 

She coiled her anger close to kindle her determination. This was all Snow’s fault. Everything was handed to her, even a prophecy and a daughter who would try to fulfill it. The rage gave her the strength to move again. And once more.

 

Her mouth was dry, her lips sticking together. 

 

“Hey…” she heard. The savior rubbed her head and stood. She reached for water and sipped, coming to stand directly in front of Regina. “So, where you headed?” she asked casually. 

 

Regina checked her progress: she wasn’t even halfway across the campsite. Different parts of her body throbbed in turn. She clenched her teeth together, rage and pain swirling together, each trying to spiral higher than the other. 

 

Regina straightened her body and rested on her side, finding the most comfortable position she could. It still felt like the ground under her was orange and searing through her clothes and skin. She gathered her animosity and pelted the savior with a glare. “I told you, if I can find my crown, it will help heal me.” Her voice was gravelly and strained despite her determination not to show weakness.

 

The savior drank again and offered Regina the pot. Regina took it but didn’t drink, as if that somehow allowed her to keep her pride. “We talked about that.”

 

Regina slumped as the pain retreated and relief sang through her. It hadn’t fully gone but it was a fraction of what it was. She could feel something beyond it now, like the rapid pulse at the side of her neck. She breathed in, slow. While she had been moving, her muscles had clenched so hard they felt as if they had turned to jagged stone, like the rock surrounding them. They jabbed at her skin from inside, while the ground she dragged herself over did the same from the outside.

 

Now, they loosened and softened. 

 

She basked in the lesser pain before speaking.  “If I can move on my own power, it’s better for both of us.” She attempted to shape her words into a logical-sounding conclusion. ”You’re trying to keep us alive, aren’t you? Why would you not want as much help as I can give you? If I’m less of a burden, doesn’t that increase our chances of getting out of here alive?” 

 

“Well, it probably increases your chances. It also greatly decreases mine.” 

 

“You do realize that at any moment, I could destroy you?”

 

“With your magic, you mean?”

 

The question had an edge Regina didn’t like. “I have, so far, decided to wait till we leave this place. I want a more public demonstration of what happens to those who defy me. I strongly suggest you do not test my patience.”

 

The savior moved to their pile of supplies, reached into a bag, and held up the crown. “Okay, so then why haven’t you just taken this? You could magic the crown to you somehow, right? So, why don’t you? Why argue with me?”

 

Regina straightened so violently her back pulsed in pain. Her jaw tightened. She tried — just briefly — to cast a spell that seized it from the savior’s hand and to her own. A drilling sensation started at her temple. She stopped and turned her face from the savior, hiding the contorted agony on her face.

 

“Come on, soon as you can, you’re going to either zap outta here or try to kill me. Either that power that’s screwing with Taz is also screwing with you, or maybe the pain? Your injuries?” Her features were relaxed, without fear or worry.

 

Regina maintained her dignity as best she could. “I don’t know. Nor do I know when it could come back. Tomorrow, or five minutes from now.”

 

“Or days?” She put the crown away again and returned to her seat by the fire. “Anyway, like I said — better for me if you don’t have magic to try and kill me with.”

 

“You’re assuming I need magic to kill you,” she said, projecting both amusement and a strong suggestion that the savior remember who she was. Her skill at sorcery was not the only reason she was feared. 

 

The savior went back to her pallet and sat. She pulled one of the small, half-burnt sticks from the fire and stirred the coals. Had the flames been more spread out or larger, it would have offered more than the occasional lick of warmth, but they had to both ration the wood and be careful of creating smoke that would build around them, making it hard to breathe. “Look…this sucks. I think we can both agree on that. Right now though, getting out of here is the priority. I just think that might be easier if we put aside all the, well, stuff and try to work together.”

 

“You and I, work together?” Regina painted a serene smile onto her lips. “Alright, I propose a deal. You give me my crown, and when it heals me I will use my magic to get us out of here. I’ll even give you till the count of 30 to run. If you leave my kingdom, I’ll let you live.”

 

She stopped playing with the dying fire. She watched the flames then flicked her eyes to Regina’s face. “What if I offered you my own deal? I get you out of here and, when I ask, you break the crown. Afterwards, I let you go and you leave the Whitranni kingdom.”

 

Regina stared at her, trying to understand if the savior was truly ignorant of what would happen if she destroyed the crown. Fear sunk its talons into her chest. Knowledge was power, always. “Why would you assume I could so much as scratch a magical item that is older than the Whitranni kingdom itself?”

 

“I met a guy who told me some things. You’re the only one who can destroy it, and if you do, my parents are free, right?”

 

“A guy? One with green skin perhaps?” Regina studied every flicker on the savior’s face, She needed to know what she knew, but there was no hint, nothing to assist her. “Magic always comes with a price.” She dangled the phrase like a baited hook. “Did he mention that?”

 

The savior frowned, confused. “Do you mean losing the kingdom? With all due respect. you don’t seem to have that much invested in it, anyway. And you’ll be alive. Maybe the prophecy doesn’t have to come true.”

 

Regina belligerently focused on the bag with the crown, not bothering to hide it. “You forget a couple of details, Savior. Your family has already cost me much. I would rather die than let you and yours take so much as a pebble of my kingdom. Besides, I rather enjoy having your mother for a decorative piece, and one day you’ll join her.”

 

The verbal stab was purposeful. She waited for some sign of strained control or temper. Some outward show that she had caused or exposed a wound. 

 

None came.

 

Instead, the savior tossed the stick she had been using back into the small flames and said, “So much for cooperation.” 

 

Regina’s frustration rose another notch.

 

################################################

  
  


Taz woke a little later and Emma gave him some water. “You ready?” she asked him, and he nodded sluggishly. His long ears drooped to his shoulders. 

 

Emma rubbed his head, feeling a weight of responsibility she hadn’t felt for a long time. It only increased as the stubborn queen asked, “Would you hand me that pickaxe? I think I could use it to help me walk.”

 

Her shoulders tensed. The queen wasn’t going to like her answer. “You’re still weak, and it would take too much time. We don’t know how stable that bridge is. I’ll have to carry you.”

 

She gaped. “You have a bad arm.”

 

“We’ll need to get you up, then over my good shoulder. If I use Taz’s speed, I think it will be okay.”

 

“So, you’re going to carry me like a sack of turnips.” 

 

Emma scratched the back of her head, searching for a safe answer to that and coming up short. “Uh, I just think it’s the best way.”

 

Regina didn’t answer. Her features grew tight and grim. She stared at the wall across from her, clutching their only torch. In the room with the bridge, light spilled in from above, so it was a small concession till they were fully ready to move. 

 

With the rope they had, Emma bundled together scraps of wood and Taz tested to see if he could carry it across. He made several passes back and forth across the bridge, carrying what little supplies they had to the other side. He could carry at least a few times his weight, which was useful. The last trip, they used rope to fashion a strap for the pickaxe so Taz could get it across as well. 

 

When he returned, Taz was huffing and puffing from the exertion. 

 

Emma rubbed his head. “Let’s take a few, then we’ll go.”

 

“Sorry,” he said as he curled into himself on her blanket.

 

“Stop,” Emma told him and patted him. “Just rest.”

 

When Taz was breathing normally again, Emma made him drink. She then wrapped her arms around Regina’s waist, quickly pulling her up. She made sure the queen was balanced then bent over, muscling her shoulder into the queen’s stomach and straightening with Regina dangling over her shoulder. 

 

As she straightened, Regina gasped in pain. “Sorry,” Emma said. “I’m going to walk us to the edge of tunnel then I’ll use Taz’s magic. It’s better to use it in more open places.  I’ll go slow and try not to jostle you too much, til then okay?”

 

No answer. 

 

“When I get to the bigger cave, we’ll probably make it to the other side in a couple of heartbeats, so that part shouldn’t be too bad,” Emma said.

 

Still nothing.

 

She adjusted Regina’s weight carefully and Taz flew to the top of Emma’s head. “Hang on, Your Majesty.” Regina didn’t make a sound as Emma moved, but she could hear her stuttered breaths. She inched along, wondering if it wouldn’t be less painful for the queen if she moved faster. 

 

When the tunnel and ceiling gaped open, Emma connected with Taz’s magic and dashed. She’d only carried people like this a couple times. August, for one. He had told her it felt like a violent gust of wind. She felt the queen flail but her arm locked Regina in place. Emma sensed the bridge beginning to sway but she completed the crossing before it could complete the motion.

 

Emma carefully lowered the queen to the ground. Regina leaned both of her hands on a stalagmite to keep her balance. 

 

“You okay,” Emma asked, rolling her shoulder, grateful to be on the other bank of the bridge safely.

 

The queen continued her silence. Emma got some fresh water and brought it to her, and as she grew close she saw that the queen’s eyes were closed, knuckles white, fisted against the rocks she used to hold herself up. 

 

“Water,” Emma said and the queen reached for the pot, fingers curling around the handle weakly. Emma couldn’t explain why she watched the queen drink, studying her as if she was a type of creature she’d never seen before. 

 

These caves had been chipping away at her in a number of ways, yet she remained unbent and unbroken.

 

The queen frowned and gestured below them. “What is that?”

 

Emma turned in time to see first the churning of bubbles, then a large ripple in the river water below. “Sword,” she said to Taz, and he leapt into her hand then transformed. 

 

The water parted and from it came a creature that seemed to have hundreds of tentacles, two of them ending in long sword-like pincers. It rose and kept rising, till its shoulders were as high as the bridge, its bottom half still partially submerged. Over its head was a helmet of rusted metal that stretched up into horns and covered all but its bright blue eyes and giant maw. Barnacles popped up against its grey skin, reminding Emma of boils or pox. Several giant mollusks adhered to its short neck, just under its gills. 

 

That was all she had time to see before a tentacle curled out of the water and then smashed onto the ledge they stood on. Emma lifted the queen around the waist and scrambled back. Rocks fell away from where they’d been standing, knocked loose by the strength of the blow.

 

Regina fell to the ground with an echoing hiss of pain. Emma stepped in front of her, twirling her sword. 

 

“Wait, wait,” Regina yelled, but Emma ran forward, swinging her blade over her head. As she tried to cleave the beast’s arm, another tentacle plowed towards her. It would have hit her dead on, if it weren’t for her magical speed as she dove to the ground.

She pushed up and recovered her sword. A pincer swung at her head and she ducked under it. She tried another attack, hacking into the wriggling arm of the beast as it attacked again. its shriek of pain sounded like pigs squealing, only at a much higher register.

 

A claw extended again and Emma, still using Taz’s magic, waited to see where it would attack. She readied herself to counter the blow, then hopefully get in another hit. 

 

But her speed dropped away and everything began to move in real time.

 

“Taz?” she called. 

 

_ “I...I can’t…” _

 

“Shit.”

 

“Savior,” Regina shouted, and the monster swung in her direction, trying to snatch at her.

 

Emma dashed in front of her and batted it away. “Hey!  You keep focused on me.”

 

“Savior,” Regina called again.

 

Emma ducked another swipe of a pincer, panting. “Little busy.”

 

“Will you listen to me, you idiot? It’s a Brylu. It can’t leave the water.”

 

“It can’t?” Emma had to leap behind a stalagmite to avoid two tentacles trying to clap her to death. “So we just have to…”

 

“Get away from the water.”

 

Emma backed up, dragging Regina with her. The creature’s long arm crashed impotently, a few feet in front of them. The snap of pincers came next, but they had even less reach. The beast let out a mournful cry and tried again, still failing.

 

It all seemed very anti-climatic. 

 

Emma cleared her throat. “Okay, okay, well...good.” She held up her sword. “Taz, what happened?”

 

_ “I don’t know. I can’t turn into an owl,” _ his voice was thready and afraid. 

 

Emma rubbed a hand over her jaw. “Let’s...let’s explore ahead and see if we can find a good place to make camp.”

  
  


#####################

 

The tunnel leading from the river went down. It smothered a little of Regina’s hope. The last thing she wanted was to go deeper into the caverns. If it had led up, it would have perhaps meant it would take them to the surface. For now, there was nothing to do but go on. 

 

The savior carried her, making stops to rest as she needed to.The savior’s face was slack with exhaustion, but otherwise implacable. Her features occasionally reflected light curiousity or thoughtfulness, but nothing else. No fear when the river monster attacked. No anger earlier when Regina baited her.

 

Regina liked knowing the weaknesses of those around her and felt, for the moment, befuddled. Using manipulation to gain the upper hand meant being able to read your opponent. She wanted to be able to push the savior this way or that. At least until she regained her magic and then, well, it would be over. 

 

The path down eventually forked, giving them a choice to either keep going straight or go right. They turned, the sound of water splashing and gurgling making the decision for them. The water came from high above, trickling down the cave wall and down a hole to rocks far below. 

 

Yet the path was a dead-end. Another discouragement, a useless obstacle to their ever-weakening bodies and a reminder of how quietly savage these caverns could be. 

 

They were too tired to go back to the main path so they made camp. Emma carefully filled the pot with water and gave some to Regina. Afterwards, she wet a cloth and smoothed it over Taz, cleaning the blade.

 

The sword must have said something Regina didn’t hear because the savior said, “Stop that. It’s okay, buddy. Maybe in a few hours, you’ll be fine.”

 

Regina shook her head, the words were so absent of warmth. Someone she couldn’t control was someone she couldn’t afford to trust. She questioned the absence of her own magic — caused by the power in these caves or her injuries?

 

Everything that had happened today was an exercise in humiliation. Depending on the savior, being slung over her shoulder, falling helplessly in front of a beast.

 

The savior had saved her life. It wrung out her pride. 

 

“Here, let me see your leg.” She had started a fire, then come to kneel at Regina’s side. She didn’t wait for an answer before she examined the ropes and wood boards. “How’s your head?” 

 

Regina felt for the lump that had been there. It was smaller. “Better. Probably be healed in no time at all.” The words hinted at recovered strength, malice sparkling in Regina’s eyes.

 

The savior frowned at the splint around Regina’s leg. The end of one of the ropes was beginning to fray. She proceeded to carefully loosen the nearest knot. “They say you knew my mother most of her life, is that true?”

 

“Are you trying to make small talk? We have no supplies. We were almost killed by a deranged octopus and you’re acting like we’re walking in the park.”

 

Emma’s hands stopped working on the rope for a moment. “Forget it.”

 

Regina readied herself to find the savior’s weaknesses, honing her words to a sharp point before speaking. Relieved, in truth, to have a target for the heaping frustration that had gathered throughout the day. “Oh no, no — you asked about your mother. You want to know about her?” Her voice was airy, falsely pleasant. “She was spoiled. She was a fool. She was weak. She whined about her problems to anyone who would listen. I was never sure if the people loved her or merely felt sorry for her.”

 

Emma freed the knot. “She still beat you.”

 

“Really?” Her laugh settled low and throaty between them. She was eager, her entire body awaited a show of emotional bleeding from her opponent. “The kingdom is mine. It will stay mine. I separated your parents from one another and from you. I have a whole garden of so-called heroes who were just like you: self-righteous and arrogant; romantic figures in the eyes of the people but impotent, incapable of making hard choices.” The savior tied the rope in place once then again. Regina continued to wait, trusting her skills at removing a person’s emotional armor, certain that she would soon relish pain in the savior’s eyes. “There’s a reason most stories end when the heroes win the kingdom and don’t show them ruling it.”

 

The savior tied a second knot. “The nobles are about to tear one another apart. No one trusts you. You’re isolated. You hide away doing whatever it is you do.”

 

“And yet, unlike your mother, I am queen.”

 

The savior shrugged, unimpressed. “Yeah, you’re looking super queenly at the moment.”

 

Regina hated how certain Emma sounded, how calm. Nothing she had done to find weaknesses had worked. The savior was immune, it seemed. Her fears twisted in her throat, threatening to choke her. She trembled, uncertain if it was from the cold or the anxiety now filling her veins.

 

Regina’s eyes spit venom. “Your mother could have run, you know. If she had been willing to give up the kingdom, she and your father could have run and taken you with them.”

 

She moved to the other side of the fire, sitting cross-legged. “My mother believed in sacrificing for her people. She was willing to lose me if it meant a chance at saving them. She thought it was a queen’s obligation to sacrifice. What have you sacrificed for your people, Your Majesty?”

 

They stared at one another, battling. “Where did you get that about your mother, you know-nothing waif? One of her sycophants? 

 

Emma lay on the ground near Taz, covering herself with the scratchy wool blanket. “This isn’t...let’s just get some sleep, okay?”

 

Regina thought Snow had earned all the hatred her heart was capable of feeling, but now the savior was a close second. 

 

She could not be powerless. Never again.

  
  


###############################

  
  


They had three blankets, and Emma continued to allow her two, despite their earlier discussion. Regina wasn’t about to protest anything that might help her heal. Yet she couldn’t stop shivering, her whole body constantly assaulted by chilly air. Her mouth dry, tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth, lips cracking. They were out of water till Emma woke and went to get more.

 

It occurred to Regina they truly could die down here. No food and tunnels that stretched on and on. There had always been legends of people coming into the mines and never returning. She wondered if Sidney had already given up searching for her and made himself Regent. He loved her, and she trusted him to a point. But she doubted the generosity of his heart would last more than a few days when there was power to be seized.

 

Henry. She closed her eyes and envisioned him. She wanted that future. 

 

Perhaps Snow had been willing to a sacrifice her child for her people, but Regina would let everything burn if it meant keeping her child.

 

The savior dared talk to her of sacrifice after what she had given up to get her vengeance?

 

Except that hadn’t been Emma’s point. What had she sacrificed for her people? Nothing, which was what they deserved. She hadn’t always thought that way. She hadn’t always been so superbly motivated to help only herself. A product of her blackened heart, perhaps. 

 

No, it was because she had had to steal every bit of happiness she had ever had. Every victory had been torn away from the many people and forces that would have denied her. She had never been given anything. 

 

Except from her father. One exception in an endless sea of people. People took. They judged. They carved prejudices into themselves and refused to reexamine them. They went through patterns of misery and contentment. They grew discontented by prosperity, insisting on deeper freedoms without finding satisfaction. Then they wanted someone to save them from the threat of their own agency, to bring back yesterday. They sought the familiarity of tyrants who history would later decry as heroes or villains, depending on the will on the majority. 

 

No one could stop that cycle.

 

But, if it was true that nothing could really be changed, what did that mean for Henry? 

 

She turned into the blanket, trying to banish the questions the savior had unleashed in her. She had always appreciated her own practicality, but the depth of her cold logic sometimes surprised her; the bleak view of the world she had embraced. Henry would be born into this dark view of her kingdom. He would breathe it in and feel the same suffocation she did. 

 

She just didn’t want it to be true. Not for him. 

 

She was queen. She was one of the most powerful magic users who had ever lived. Yet, she didn’t believe she could change anything. What hope could she offer him? She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. 

 

She opened her eyes to the quiet play of firelight pushing against the blackness. She took a deep breath and tried to press her magic forward, to extend her will and make the fire brighter. A simple spell, something even a novice could manage. Her will connected to the power inside her. She pushed herself harder, a pinching feeling in the back of her neck. 

 

So close, she could feel it — power gathering and wanting to be released, like a taut bowstring. Her head began to throb, so hard it made her breathing stagger. She stopped and rolled her temples with the tips of her fingers till the pain retreated completely. 

 

She had to do something. She couldn’t continue to wait here in the dark. 

 

She rested, and when she had regained her strength, she rolled to her stomach. She checked the savior, asleep and motionless. Agonizingly, she half-dragged herself and half-crawled toward the gear near Emma. 

 

This time the savior didn’t wake. This time, she refused to stop for more than a moment no matter how the rocks scraped at her or how many times a stabbing pain shot through her leg down to her toes.

 

It was slow, but finally, she reached into the bag and curled her fingers around her crown. Regina placed it on her head, triumphant. 

The power of the crown moved down her body like icy, intrusive fingers. But it always hurt when it healed her, and this time...this time there was nothing. Something was wrong. She searched her bond with the crown and tried to connect to it. Usually the sensation was like having a hook embedded in her chest, with a thick rope tied to the crown. This time, only thin scraps bound them together. She couldn’t use its power. She wasn’t sure it was healing her.

 

No. 

 

No! 

 

She needed….

 

She needed to go south, back toward the river and that creature. Away from whatever was here, impacting her magic.

 

The savior shifted to her side. An innocent motion, but it reminded Regina that getting the crown was only part of what she needed to accomplish. 

 

She refused to let savior stop her again. Not again. Carefully she crept closer.

 

Regina’s hand found purchase on Emma’s bare neck. “You should have taken my deal,” she said and squeezed as hard as she could.


	8. Of Things That are Good for Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happpyyyyyy Thursday everyone!  
> Today's flight continues in the Caverns of Soras where after some initial turbulence, there's a break in the weather. Also, a few questions about Emma's stone heart will be answered, but more will arise. It's almost like I am doing plot or something.
> 
> BTW, my wife got me a little puppet Taz because she is the best wife ever. However, I completely ruined the surprise of it because I checked the mail (she is usually the mail checker in our household). I knew she was waiting for some meds and I thought 'hey let me check and see if they have come'. I can't stress enough that my intentions were good. 
> 
> Ahem. But I digress.
> 
> This is your captain speaking.

_Before the creation of the Whitranni Kingdom, there were the Qualsala. Their people worshipped a god of their own making. With their alchemy and their own hands, they created wondrous things. They hated the old gods and hated magic. They pointed to the battle between the sisters, Muirgen and Soras, as an example of magic’s corrupting influence. They were driven from the world by the followers of the gods and fled underground. This reportedly angered Muirgen, who held the place her sister died as sacred. It is known that the Qualsala survived for several years deep in the earth, but Muirgen hunted them until they were no more._ _Or so it is said._

 

_ \--- A Study of our History and Mythology _

  
  


**Garden of Heroes**

 

**Of Things That are Good for Us**

  
  
  


“Damn you.” Regina’s fingers coiled harder around Emma’s neck, their faces an inch apart. She pressed harder as the savior’s eyes widened in alarm and confusion. The savior’s usually bland features twisted with rage. Strong hands grabbed her wrist. A short-lived glee pumped in Regina’s heart from causing that darkness, from finally gaining a reaction.

 

The savior rolled, slamming Regina to her back. Her hand seized Regina’s throat.

 

Regina’s bad leg smashed against the rocky ground. The pain grabbed her so viciously that it threatened to drag her down, away from consciousness. She clenched her teeth. Her back convulsed several times as if it was attempting to tear itself from the rest of her body and escape the pain.

 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” The savior’s pupils constricted, nostrils flaring with the intensity of her breathing. “You fucking bitch. How did you think this would go?” She pressed closer, using more of her body weight to keep Regina pinned down.

 

Regina expected the fingers on her neck to constrict, for the daughter of Snow White to end their struggle once and for all. She should have planned this better. She had acted impulsively, giving in to feelings of desperation and helplessness. She tried to shove the savior off, slapping at the side of her face when that didn’t work. 

 

There was no reaction to the blows. The savior’s fingers still exerted no pressure on her windpipe. She seemed frozen atop Regina except for her brows twitching and relaxing several times in thought. 

 

Her instincts told her it was an opening.

 

Regina shuddered as the agony in her leg receded, replaced by the feeling of a red-hot poker searing her then withdrawing—a continuous throb of respite then punishment. She refused to let it steal her words. 

 

She pulled the fragments of her will together and ignored everything but her zeal to win. “What do you want to do, Savior?” Her voice was unsteady but low. She bent her tone into a quiet caress. “You can end this once and for all, right now.” She lifted her head, exposing more of her throat. “But then you lose everything.”

 

The savior’s eyes shifted to her hand still curled against the queen’s neck. Her fingers pressed down enough to hurt, but no further.

 

Regina’s blood raced with the unpredictability of the moment. It was so much better than the monotony of the dark she had been trapped in for days. “It feels incredible, doesn’t it? Having your enemy, someone who has stolen so much from you, helpless before you. So, now you know how it felt when I turned your mother to crystal.” 

 

She winced and Regina pressed her advantage. “Snow White, whatever else she was, was filled with passion,” Regina made sure their eyes were connected, wanting to catch any hint that she had caused the savior to emotionally bleed. “Does it bother you that you’re so different from her in that way? She had convictions, but I don’t see that in you. It makes me wonder why you’re fighting so hard. Why you don’t just let me go?”

 

Emma wrenched her hands away and rose.

 

Regina felt the warmth of satisfaction curl inside her. Somehow she had found a button to press. She didn’t entirely understand how but she would figure it out.

 

Emma turned toward her sword and went to it. “I’m fine,” she said and lifted it. She pressed her palm against the wall, leaning on it, breathing deeply. She eyed Regina. “You are using up energy that I can’t afford to spare.” She said calmly, unemotionally, as if a lever had been pulled. 

 

Regina wondered at the abruptness of the change.

 

Emma set down the sword just long enough to grab a length of rope and tie the crown around her waist. 

 

“I told you I need my crown.”

 

She shrugged, features lifeless. “And I said no. You’re unpredictable enough without it. Look, I don’t know if your magic will be back an hour from now or weeks from now, and neither do you. What I do know is that we’re fighting for our lives here. We could die down here, do you get that?”

 

“I do not enjoy being helpless. Especially around you.”

 

Emma rubbed at her neck and the red impression of fingerprints there. “So that’s it? This hurts your pride?”

 

Regina chuckled, taunting. “Do you really not understand? We are at war. Only one of us gets to live. That's the way this has to end.”   
  


She jerked her head in the direction of her sword. She paused then nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Okay, let’s all just take a few moments, okay?” She picked up a stick and quickly fashioned a torch by tying a bit of cloth to the end and lighting it. “Taz and I are going to explore a little further ahead. We’ll be back soon.”

  
  


#####################################

 

Emma knew Taz had seen at least part of what had happened, which meant it was time to give him an explanation. She tried to figure out where to begin.

 

_ “I am, just so you know, waiting for you to explain why you seemed angry. And if you were indeed angry, then it brings up as many questions are there are fish in the sea. Incidentally, fish sounds very tasty. Not that I could enjoy it as the moment.”  _ He sounded peppy and curious, his exhaustion waylaid for the moment.

 

Emma paced back and forth a few times, but the tussle with the queen had weakened her, made her wobbly. She leaned back into an indentation in the wall that she could partially sit on. She set the torch on the ground and lifted Taz up. Her hand curled into the basket hilt that protected her knuckles and fingers.

 

“At the banquet with the queen, something happened. I just—please don’t make a big deal of it.”

 

_ “I am the very soul of discretion.”  _

 

She traced the etching of a bird on his blade, the one with fiery wings she hadn’t figured out yet. “You remember that the queen made this big speech about how the people were stuck with her? After the queen made her speech, she grabbed my wrist and I…I felt things.” 

 

_ “You felt—what?” _

 

“Fear at first, I think. I don’t know. It’s not like I have a lot of experience with this stuff. But then, anger. That was easier to figure out because I wanted to hit things. People. One person.”

 

_ “Emotions? You felt emotions?”  _ His words were hushed, awed and trembling, with the beginnings of jubilation. Maybe like the relief of a father who had cared for a child through a long illness, and was finally promised a cure. “ _ But this must be fate. Emma, she’s your sworn enemy but she summons your heart.” _

 

“I don’t really think that’s how it works.” 

 

_ “Emmmmma!”  _

 

She leaned him on the wall next to her. “Okay, okay, stop. I didn’t tell you before because I wasn’t sure. I mean, down here, I examined her leg but it was over her clothes, I guess. Anyway, just now….it happened again. Maybe because of skin to skin contact?”

 

_ “Skin!”  _

 

She gave him a stern expression. “Soul of discretion, remember?”

 

He sighed, but spoke into her mind more quietly,  _ “What are you going to do?” _

 

“Nothing.”

 

_ “Nothing? Emma, it’s fate.” _

 

Emma shook her head. She didn’t want to think about it. It just felt like another burden right now. “Why would the prophecy or the curse or whatever do this? It’s fucked up, right? It makes no sense. Look, I’m full up on things I am fated to do at the moment. Besides, I’m pretty busy trying to get us out of here.” 

 

_ “This is a gift, Emma.” _

 

“It’s illogical, Taz. I have alway wanted to be normal. I don’t want to be this way. You know I don’t want to be this way. My whole life, my friends hug me and I feel nothing. I hear my mother’s letters and they don’t touch me. That’s why after Granny died, I didn’t look at them anymore. It seemed a waste of time to read things that kept talking about my heart.” She knew how cold it sounded, how disappointed she should be in herself for talking that way. She wished she could be. 

 

“I have this set of rules in my head that I live by, to try and do what mom and dad would want me to do, or what you taught me. But, there’s never anything behind it. No sense of rightness before or after. So, after waiting my whole life, what sense does it make that it’s her that brings things out in me?”

 

The press of his words in her mind gentled as he called her name. “ _ Emma, If I had realized when I was cursed that one of my forms would be a small owl with rabbit ears, I would have been humiliated. But by the time you woke me, I had been trapped as a sword for so long, I would have been happy with any shape. And I have come to believe that my owl form was the perfect one for a child to bond with.” _

 

_ “All the decades hanging on a wall inside the blacksmith’s house. Not able to share in the laughter or pain. In the joy and suffering of that beautiful family. It was unbearable, but for the first time, I saw the truth. When I was alive, I was foolish. All I left behind was destruction. That was my only legacy. That understanding now guides me. It makes me yearn for just one chance to change the world for the better. I think that started with you, and I don’t know where it will lead, but it has been such an adventure.” _

 

She closed her eyes, searching for some small sign that his words had connected with something inside her. As usual, there was only the reverberation of them that hit nothing and slipped away as if they had never been.

 

_ “I have come to the conclusion that I have no idea what is good for me. Maybe at the door of our deepest despair and heartache, we are also simultaneously at doors to our greatest triumphs and the best of ourselves. It would be nice if that was true, don’t you think?” _

 

“You’re right about at least one thing: I can’t control how she impacts me. But I have to be careful. She’s smart. If she figures out what she can do to me, it will be bad. I can’t trust her.”

 

_ “It seems to me that continuing as we are is untenable.” _

 

“I agree with you there, but it’s not like I can force the queen to cooperate.”

 

_ “I should note that the old me, in her shoes, would have tried to kill you too. Just good strategy, really. However, I would have hit you with a rock first.” _

 

“Okay, you and the queen aren’t allowed to be alone again, ever.” Emma paused. “Have you tried to turn back into an owl again?”

 

“I can feel glimmers of strength returning, but I can’t yet. I think we’ll need to limit using my magic. This place has made me weaker. I feel like I am consigned to watch again, unable to help the way I wish I could.”

 

“You’re my sword-owl. I think somehow you got two helpings of heart to balance out my lack of one. You always help.”

 

“But...I want to do more.”

 

She looked down the tunnel in front of them, the endless rock before them and behind them. “I know, buddy.”.

.

  
  


##########################

  
  


“Hey,” the savior said as she returned. She set Taz down on her blanket. “You okay?”

 

Regina gingerly sat up, still on the bare ground where Emma had left her. She had tried, when she had been left alone, to move back to her blankets. Her leg had strongly protested. Lying on the ground made her body ache, but it was the lesser of two evils. “Other than the broken leg, the hunger, and being trapped with my enemy?’ 

 

There were lines between them, and Regina wanted them reinforced and solid. She challenged the savior with a satisfied expression, as if she had been the victor in their previous confrontation. Maybe she had. “For reference, you’re far more interesting when you’re angry.”

 

Emma rubbed at the back of her neck and sat across from her. “Do you know the stories about these caverns?”

 

“There are many stories. Muirgen and her sister. Monsters. The Qualsala.”

 

“The ones about all the people who went into the caverns and never returned home. It happened to the brother of a friend of mine. He went outside the mapped area and just”—she flicked open her hand—“disappeared.”

 

At that moment, Emma's detached voice almost soothed her. Anger rose inside her easily, but it rested atop weariness that she had carried ever since she had defeated Snow. “Yes, I know the stories.”

 

The savior dropped her head, shoulders sagging. She stared at the water pot, licking her lips. She eventually glanced away, perhaps deciding it was too far away and abandoning the idea of slaking her thirst for the moment. The display of fatigue surprised Regina, as if she hadn’t truly considered her human until that moment.

 

“We need to figure out this thing between us, Your Majesty. I’m getting worn down. I can’t keep fighting you and these caverns. The three of us—we’re all we have right now. Do you see that?”   
  


If not for the savior, the Brylu would have killed her, or her injuries would have. Though, if not for her, she wouldn’t be here in the first place. Regina weighed what she knew about the crown’s diminished power and the effect these caverns were having on it. Her plan had been to bide her time until she could use the crown and heal. The fumes of that idea, as well as her stubbornness, fueled her. But her plotting had been based on the flawed idea that the item she was bonded to was immune to whatever was in these caverns. 

 

Her weakening body was another factor to consider. She hurt everywhere, and a small part of her just wanted to go to sleep for as long as she could, no matter what it cost her.

 

“Tell me why you saved me. I want you to actually say it.”

 

Emma shrugged, a large rising and falling of her shoulders. “You guessed part of it, to try and break the curse. But, I have a code, things I believe in and follow. You were—are—badly injured. Leaving you or killing you didn’t seem like the right thing to do. That’s the full truth.”

 

Regina scoffed, “That's your parents in you. All these finite ideas about right and wrong instead of focusing on winning.”   
  


Regina had once believed in so many things, in goodness and love. All of it was murdered the moment Daniel was. She considered it a gift sometimes, to be rid of those childish illusions that would only make her hesitate when she needed to act. Snow could have killed her so many times: When she and Charming married, before she was pregnant, or at any time while she awaited the curse. Snow could have won. But her desire to “do the right thing” made her hesitate when she should have acted. So Regina had won and Snow had lost.

 

Yet, all of her winning hadn’t made her happy. She wanted more for her son. 

 

_ “ _ _ Once upon a time there was a girl with a heart so strong and so bright, it was believed she could change the world,”  _ the Author had written about her. Before everything, she had loved with infinite  hope. Henry deserved to love and be loved that way.    
  


The savior came closer, crouching on one knee. “Okay, so don’t you have to be alive to win?” She rose and pulled her blanket over to her, moving the water closer as well. “You’re right, we’re at war, but if we fight that war down here, we’ll die. We need to put it aside. I’m not saying it will be easy, but if we want to survive, we don’t have a choice.”

 

They stared at one another.

 

Regina eventually dropped her eyes first; something about the forthrightness in the savior’s gaze pinged at her conscience. “You have to let me do something,” she said slowly, tearing the admission free from her pride and clenching her fists. “I can’t...do nothing.”

 

“Okay. We’ll figure out something you can—”

 

“The pickaxe,” Regina interrupted. “If you can help me stand, and with a little practice, I think I could use it to walk.”

 

They both turned their attention to the shadow of the tool on the wall. She could all but see the wheels turning in the savior’s mind. It meant arming the enemy, even if that weapon was an utterly impractical one. Finally, she nodded. 

 

Emma groaned as she stood, moving wearily toward their gear and picking it up. She brought the pickaxe to Regina, stretching it out to her, the head of it on the ground. 

 

Regina took it slowly, a part of her expecting the savior to pull it away at the last moment and mock her. She didn’t.

 

“So, I think we make a truce. No bullshit. Just me and you promising that we’ll do all we can to get all of us out of here. Just—think about it, okay?” She motioned to the pickaxe. “You want to give it a try?”

 

“Now?”

 

“Well, I am going to lie down soon and when I do, I’ll be down awhile.”

 

“Very well.” Regina considered which part of the pickaxe should be under her arm. She decided that the metal part would fit there more easily. She placed the wooden handle on the ground.

 

“Ready? Let’s get you up.” Emma moved behind her and wrapped an arm under her arms. “Count of three, you push up with your good leg.” She counted off and indelicately, with some wobbling, Regina stood. “You got it?”

 

“I think so.”

 

The savior backed off but stayed nearby. Regina took a tentative hop forward, leaning mostly on the pickaxe. She tried again, and this time she teetered but Emma caught hold of her again. The savior’s body heat soothed most of the chill she had suffered for days. She refused to allow herself to find comfort in it.

 

“I’m fine,” Regina said and pulled free. She moved just a few steps forward, then back to her original position. It exhausted her down to her bones, but the frustration born of helplessness eased significantly.

 

“For what it’s worth,” the savior said, their bodies close again. “If it comes down to it, yes, I will give you your crown. But that will be when I believe things are completely desperate. Until then, I promise you I’m going to do everything I can to get all of us out of here.”

 

She used the crude crutch again, a few more steps in the other direction, then turned and moved back to camp. She shuffled forward until she could make out her face. “Very well. Till we get to the surface, we’ll declare a truce. You have my word.”

 

“Can I trust your word?”

 

“Do you have a choice?” But for some reason, she didn’t leave it there, though she should have. “I swear on Henry. And that’s the best you can hope for.”

 

Some time later, after they had rested, Taz turned back into an owl

 

They played that stupid pun game again. They said things like, “Free for owl,” or “Owl will if you will.” It was ridiculous, but the back of forth of it helped her ignore most of her body’s complaints and go back to sleep. 

 

#####################################

 

Emma kept waking. Small, natural noises jolted her awake. An inherent protectiveness lived inside her, and now that she’d made the queen a promise, it had fully triggered. She got up to tend the fire. Her body rebelled. It felt like she was carrying a large animal, maybe Regina’s stupid horse, on her back, She hunched as she moved. Emma went to get them water and drank two potfuls before she brought it back to the camp. 

 

Before they’d all gone to sleep, she had shared with them her new cautious plan of navigating the caverns. Taz would fly ahead, about half the length of their bond, then Regina and Emma would catch up. The three of them would rest a couple of hours between lengths of the journey. They would sleep when they couldn’t go on anymore. With Taz’s weariness and the queen’s need for some degree of independence, they had to slow down. 

 

She wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, if she should push them harder, but she knew a little about keeping up morale from her days leading the rebellion. 

 

_ “Sometimes emotional needs are as important as physical ones,”  _ Granny had told her and encouraged her to go among them and offer a smile or a kind word.  _ “Sometimes people just need things.” _

 

Emma faked understanding it.

 

She watched the firelight and the way it gently lit the queen’s peaceful expression.

 

She thought back to her conversation with Taz and looked down to her hand, remembering when she held the queen’s neck.

 

Why her?

 

She wondered things, like what she would feel if she touched the queen right now. Would Regina, because of who she was to Emma, only ever be able to make her feel anger or fear? Both times it had worked so far, that was a factor. But maybe, if her fingers brushed Regina’s skin and she thought about her parents, something would be set free in her. 

 

She had never wanted to fully believe in the prophecy. She wanted to trust that she could make her own fate. Her enemy’s ability to reach her when nothing else could was the kind of irony that wasn’t accidental. Maybe she’d never been in command of anything, had always been at the mercy of some large, all-powerful force. 

 

If the queen woke only negative feelings, would that be the best she could hope for until the curse was broken?

 

She rubbed her hands together, and moved until she stood over the queen. 

 

Sometimes people just need things.

 

She knelt. Her hand shook as she reached out, inching toward Regina’s hand. 

 

_ This was stupid _ , she thought, because if the queen woke, there would be no good explanation.

 

Taz called it a gift. 

 

She pulled in a deep breath, her logic shouting she should stop, that this wasn’t the most important thing right now. She’d said that same thing to Taz, after all.

 

It would just be a test of the barest connection, the lightest of touches. 

 

Sometimes people need things.

 

Her hand paused over Regina’s knuckles. She checked Regina’s face, to make sure it remained smooth and relaxed. 

 

Her fingers brushed Regina’s skin.

  
  
  



	9. Of Noises in the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday everybody!  
> I am infected with the zombie flu plague so I am a little late but I am here! Note: The zombie flu plague is a headcold and it makes me feel like *I* have no brains, instead of eating other brains. 
> 
> Quick bit of news. I am going to be participating in Swanqueen Supernova this year for the first time. I have a fun story idear all abuzz in my head and can't wait to share it. However, it does mean that in a 4 weeks or so I will slow down on update to GoH. I don't think it will be too dire but wanted to give you all a heads up. I will have virtual pinball machines and virtual totally make-believe PS4 installed in the cabin for your further in-flight entertainment to assist you during those times. 
> 
> Today's update has spills, chills and puns. Is there turbulence, well, only at the end. 
> 
> Lastly, thank you so much for the support. Feeedback is powerful fuel and motivations and honestly it always feels like a big hug whether it comes on Twitter, in Kudos or in comments. Also did you know you could TOTALLY follow me on Twitter?! You can! I know, crazy right? I'm mariacomet there too.
> 
> Surrounded by tissues, this is your captain speaking.

_….No writings exist regarding how Muirgen twisted the bodies of men or stole their magic. However, the stories alone inspired those with darkness in their hearts. One of the most ambitious was Tazmaran Stolio, a puppet of the Grim Emperor. He and his students learned to corrupt the natural cycle of life. They called forth the dead bodies of the Grim Emperor’s enemies and turned them into his soldiers. Over time, others built on Tazmaran’s writings. Eventually, the many books and studies were collected in one volume, called the Korit of Skulls. In the Whitranni kingdom, the Gealbans outlawed the book and destroyed any copies that were found. Our spies, posing as servants of the Evil Queen, say that she has several copies._

 

_Do not underestimate what she might do._

 

 **— letter to** **Arhona Amina Emerlas**

 

**Garden of Heroes**

 

**Of Noises in the Dark**

 

As she touched the queen, she discovered things about emotion; for instance, grief and love could be felt at the same time. Memory’s arms could embrace you. Imagining what someone might do one day could feel real. Most important of all, she learned that love transcended everything. Any doubt, any wrong, any lapse: it strode past them without faltering. Which explained how she could love so completely two people she’d never met; how she carried them and they were forever part of the best of her.

 

She thought of her mother writing letters to her, hunched over candlelight and scribbling furiously.

 

Tears rose in her eyes and her fingers caught them; they were warm. She had never cried before.

 

Her father knowing he would likely die and still having the presence of mind to give her to Grumpy before turning to face the queen’s men. Grumpy said he had kissed her forehead before he surrendering her.

 

She let herself wonder what it might have been like if had he been the one to teach her to fight. Or her mother. She imagined that Snow White, the former bandit, might understand Emma’s preference for tunics and pants instead of dresses. Though Emma would have, occasionally, given in to the need to keep up appearances and...

 

Just daydreams. Still, they made her smile and pained her chest.

 

She still barely touched Regina, only resting two fingers against her knuckles.

 

She thought of meeting Taz and all the games they'd made up and played.

 

She remembered telling Ruby she was curious about kissing. She felt the shock of her sixteen-year-old self as Ruby seized her by the shirt and pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. Years later, Ruby admitted her feelings for Emma; she had stumbled over her reply. She could regret that now, understand the aching on her friend’s features. She wanted to hug her and explain that Ruby had changed her life and that she needed her. She needed all of them. She couldn’t offer a romantic love, but still, Ruby and the others were part of her, woven into her. They were important.

 

She wanted to go back to the day the council of lords had admonished her, so her anger could rise and she could tell them where to stick their reprimand for interfering with the spice trade.

 

She grinned as she finally understood most (though not all) of August’s jokes. She realized how often Grumpy told her that he loved her without telling her, in gruff actions and words that he denounced as nothing the moment after he did them.

 

She viewed her life with new eyes before straying to the present, a brief detour.

 

Why the queen? Why her?

 

This women who tortured her family, who stole so much from Emma that she would never be fully able to understand the cost. She wanted to hate her, and the darkness of it trickled inside her. But it did not become the ocean she wanted it to be. Her stone heart forced her to rely on reason. It taught her, all of her life, to ask Why. The question had become habit.

 

 _Why do they love me?_ about Granny and Grumpy.

 

_Why did my parents save me and not themselves?_

 

_Why do people cry when they’re happy?_

 

_Why do people act like assholes just because they can?_

 

_Why do people fear those who are different from them?_

 

_Why could the evil queen make her feel when no one and nothing else could?_

 

She needed to understand and without that, there was only the turbulence of confusion.

 

The queen somehow brought life to the desolate place in her chest, that cold bauble that pumped her blood and did little else. She could not call what was happening evil, and it was even harder to believe that it could come from someone truly evil. No, some part of the queen either brought this miracle to her or allowed for it. She clenched her jaw against the instinct to take the queen’s hand or move closer.

 

Trust her heart, her mother had said. Was this what she meant?

 

She remembered the banquet, the excitement at the bantering and the arousal tearing through her body when the queen whispered in her ear. She matched that against the women who refused to cower or give up, who fought and didn’t seem to know how to stop.

 

Regina shifted in her sleep and Emma jerked back.

 

The loss was like being pushed out of a fire-warmed room into a winter evening. Her muscles were paralyzed by the shock of it and she couldn’t move for a moment.

 

She collapsed on her blanket; none of it felt real. For a bit, she processed everything, her mind reviewing the implications—both good and bad. She cataloged the memories that evoked strong responses, turning them into a list of facts. Unable to connect more than that to them. Her mind reached for what she’d lost, but couldn’t find it.

 

Soon, exhaustion and an ache in her lower back dragged her towards sleep. She had just been given a miracle. It felt wrong that she was able to fall asleep so easily.

  


########################################

  


Regina was keeping her word. She didn’t like it. The last thing she wanted to do was to have to play nice with the savior. Still, she followed instructions and voiced anything she thought might be helpful.

 

They didn’t speak beyond that, which suited her just fine.

 

Occasionally, she caught Emma watching her as if she had questions she wanted to ask. Regina avoided meeting her eyes, she didn’t owe her any answers.

 

This was the third leg of their journey so far today. The bird, Taz, was somewhere up ahead, waiting for them. He had found water dripping from several stalagmites on the ceiling. It was welcome news; they’d been rationing water all day. The savior, with her usual proclivity toward martyrdom, had been allowing Regina to drink more than she did.

 

In this part of the tunnel, the height and width shrank and they both stooped and turned their bodies sideways to get through.

 

Regina heard scuffling and then a thud behind her. The savior was doing what she called “‘guarding their backs,” and Regina must have secretly judged her competent because the noise surprised her. She turned to find Emma crumpled in a heap on the floor. “What happened?”

 

She rose in inches instead of a fluid motion, face scrunched in pain. “I just stumbled.”

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, barely audible, even speaking seemed to tax her. She stared at the wall across from her, narrowing her eyes as if trying to see it clearly.

 

Regina raised a brow. ”Isn’t some degree of honesty part of cooperating with one another?”

 

Cooperating; they’d used that word and similar derivatives a lot so far today. Regina had, as they’d made their start, argued that in the spirit of “working together”, she should help carry things. Emma protested at first then wordlessly handed her the water pot and one blanket. The flitting thought that she could bludgeon the savior with the cast-iron pot should it come to it comforted her. For now, though, she planned on keeping the truce until they were free of this wretched place.

 

“If you need to rest,” Regina said, “you should say so, I’m not your m...you know what I mean.”

 

The savior rubbed at her eyes, blinked then did it again. “I think we should push on while I can. My eyes are a little blurry. My legs are getting unsteady. I don’t feel hungry anymore. I’m not sure if that’s good or not.”

 

“I am not hungry either.” Regina realized, laying her palm on her stomach. “I doubt it’s good.”

 

The statement fell into the silence glumly, like a deflated ball, it thudded. Regina regretted saying anything. They didn’t need additions to their misery.

 

Their gowns were ragged and dirty. Their hair wispy, strands in all directions, curls where once hair had been flat. Her skin continuously tingled in response to the cold. When the wind came, she had to pull her arms closer to her chest, making herself smaller and trying to give it less of a target.

 

They were a mess.

 

“If we rest and take care of ourselves, instead of wasting energy in unnecessary heroics” —Regina flicked her eyes pointedly to the savior—“we’ll manage.”

 

“How am I acting heroic?”

 

A remark about Emma’s parentage and stupid acts of nobility being in her blood jumped onto Regina’s tongue. Her reserves of energy were too low and her promise to work with Emma too new.

 

“You push yourself. You give me the extra blanket. You don’t drink nearly as much water as you should. Most of the time, sacrificing yourself for others doesn’t actually help anyone.” She tried to sound brave, confident to the point of arrogance. It gave her a sense of control as fear struck her in a flurry of blows. “For now, we need you. I would appreciate it if you kept that in mind.”

 

“I’m in better shape than you are, Your Majesty.”

 

“Perhaps you were. But hour by hour, you’re weakening. You can either take care of yourself to slow that process down or continue as you are and hasten it.”

 

Emma’s lips pressed into a thin line as she weighed what Regina had said, then she nodded. “Okay, maybe you’re right. I’ll be more careful.” Emma’s easy agreement spiked Regina’s anger. A fight would have made things feel more manageable. “Let’s focus on catching up to Taz. Then we can make camp for a bit.”

 

“How very reasonable of you,” Regina said, digging the pickaxe hard into the dirt as she hopped forward.

 

“Being reasonable is bad?” Emma asked, confused.

 

Regina didn’t answer.

 

When they finally caught up to Emma’s pet, Emma lay on the hard ground without bothering to unfurl her blanket or anyone else’s. “I’ll unpack soon. Promise.”

 

Regina noticed the owl, head tilted, frowning at Emma. “Sit. I will bring you water,” he said. “You need to sleep.”

 

“I’m okay.”

 

He picked up the handle of the iron pot and flew to the savior. His talons dropped the water container about half an inch over her chest, spilling water on her gown. He circled and made an unsteady landing near her.

 

As she drank, Regina watched her critically, wondering how much strength the savior had left. “When you have a…” Regina gestured to her primitive crutch, feeling her cheeks warm. She bared her teeth and forced the next words free. “I’m not capable of sitting without help. Not yet.”

 

“Right,” Emma said softly, almost to herself. She crawled to her knees and paused, breathing in large gulps of air. She closed her eyes then pushed herself up. She set up the blankets first, then wound her arms around Regina’s waist to help as she lowered herself to the ground.

 

Emma built a small fire. Their bundled supply of wood was about wide as a fist. She dragged her things closer to Regina’s, on the same side of the fire, in reaching distance. Neither commented or acknowledged it.

 

When she lay down again, Taz nestled near her shoulder.

 

Emma drank again and rubbed the bird’s head. “You know, I’ve been sacrificing to try and help you get better. That’s why. Not to be a hero.”

 

“If you say so, Savior.”

 

“It’s the logical thing to do.”

 

“And it’s ‘good,’ isn’t it?” Emma’s stare became questioning and didn’t relent. Regina sighed. Your mother saw it as ’good’  when she didn’t run from me. Did the people rise up in her name and overthrow me? Have the lords shown courage or generosity? Your rebellion, stealing coin and giving it away or using it for weapons; years of you weakly challenging my power. Have you gained anything at all? Have the people?”

 

Taz rose, feathers fluffed up, making him twice as big as usual. “You deliberately made them afraid of you. The people hate you but fear you too much to act—you created that impasse. It was well done, actually.”

 

The amusement of the debate distracted Regina from the pain and cold. “Exactly my point, feather duster. You worry about ‘good’ while I create the game, set the pieces and make the rules. You worry about everyone. I worry about me. You need those peasants and those weak-kneed lords. I need no one.”

 

A pang in her heart wouldn’t be ignored. Her father, it said to her Every day she could feel the hole of him in her life. She lived around it by studying magic for hours. Her thoughts ran away from it, clinging to ancient texts. When she saw the boy in the mirror, the other Henry, the hole felt a little lighter for the first time.

 

Taz’s plumage smoothed into place again. “Yes, ‘I cared less than anyone else’ is indeed an aspiration to be proud of.”

 

She got the feeling that all of them were using this conversation as a reprieve. Usually fury would rise from her toes to her chest when someone challenged her. Now, everything felt numb and tired, the debate a clinical one. “And what should I aspire to?”

 

“To heal? To create? Maybe something small. Maybe with just one person. At the banquet, you seemed quite alone. You versus the rest of the kingdom. Maybe there are people, people you would least expect, who you could save in ways you can’t even imagine now.”

 

Emma moved a hand just behind him and he jumped. The pair stared at one another for several beats before Emma faced her again

 

“Why are you so...ah...I mean, you don’t seem to have many allies?”

 

Regina’s eyes narrowed on her, scrutinizing her in the dark. “I keep my options open. You remember the issue between Banok and Castor? Tell me, do you think those two reached a resolution in my dungeons and all is harmonious now?”

 

“Well, they couldn’t get it together before. They probably won’t now.”

 

Regina nodded. It was an impressively pessimistic thing for someone in the Gealban family line to say. “You lack your mother’s irritatingly persistent hope, I see. Human beings want the easy path and they want to be comfortable. Emotionally and physically, they will always choose those two things. Still wonder why I prefer my solitude?”

 

The words echoed inside her, hollow. How many times had she scoffed at the idea of ‘good’ and insisted that people couldn’t be trusted, she wondered. And why now did she hear a dare to prove her wrong? Had it always been there?

 

If she could count the times she had strung those words or thoughts together since the savior had been born, how high would that number be? Thousands? What was the tally since she’d begun to believe that way; since a young Snow White handed a shovel to her mother and her mother had buried her childhood?

 

“But isn’t that logic lazy?” Taz asked, curling close to Emma again. “It requires you to do nothing. Change nothing. Risk nothing.” Emma lay down the leather sack he usually slept in and he scooted inside it.

 

“It also prevents you from wasting your time,” Regina said mildly.

 

Sleep reached for her and her eyelids grew heavy. The fire snapped it’s glowing sparks toward the ceiling as silence grew between them. Regina rolled half of her body towards the cave wall.

 

“Your Majesty, can I ask you one thing? About the curse?”

 

She wanted to let herself drift into oblivion but her curiosity rose in a small ripple. “I suppose.”

 

“They say that they can still hear and see everything. Is that true?” Emma asked, verbally tiptoeing.

 

“It’s true. Their continued awareness was key to my revenge,” she said, too tired to even gloat.

 

“Did the curse do anything else?”

 

She turned her head towards the savior, not sure she understood the question. “That wasn’t enough?”

 

Emma didn’t answer. “You need anything before I…”

 

“No.”

 

She rolled so she faced the ceiling again and closed her eyes. “Hey, I’ve been carrying this dagger. It was one of the tools we found. Can you carry it tomorrow? It’s a bit awkward to have it on the rope around my waist.”

 

The quiet words were a gesture, Regina realized. She didn’t know why. People did not trust the evil queen, even as a pretense. “Especially with you carrying the crown there too? You know, you could just give me the crown. I’m sure that’s even more cumbersome.”

 

Her voice carried only lightness, almost a joke.

 

Regina heard a yawn. “Just as soon as you grow wings and fly like Taz does.”

 

“Let’s not fly off the handle,” Taz said which kicked off several rounds of puns between he and the savior before they all slept.

 

#########################################

 

After they woke, Taz scouted ahead again. His reports back to Emma were marked by long periods of silence. The lack of his thoughts bouncing in her head with her own still didn’t feel right.

 

_“Hey—I touched her. Last night, I think. Before we traveled for the day. Her hand. It worked.”_

 

A surge of warmth filled their bond _. “You felt something?”_

 

_“Yeah. It was...good.”_

 

 _“I will say ‘I told you so’ in excruciating detail as soon as you catch up to me again.”_ By silent agreement, they let the topic rest so he could focus.

 

Emma packed up camp. Keeping in mind what she and the queen discussed the day before, she drank extra water. She might have imagined the approval in the queen’s face as she did, but she decided it was both real and a sign of their continuing cooperation.

 

 _“There’s a cave up ahead, Emma. And light.”_ Taz’s weary voice was touched by hope. _“Should I keep going or wait here for you and the queen?”_

 

Emma reported what Taz was saying to Regina, but didn’t want to keep Taz waiting so she made a decision for them. _“A little more. You didn’t leave that long ago...maybe just go to the entrance?”_

 

_“I’m peeking in.” The voice in her mind instinctively lowered to a whisper. “There’s a crevice high above, and it runs the width of this cave. That’s the source of the light. It must be daylight outside. I wonder how many days it’s been? Wait, I see a tunnel on the other side of the cave. I hear water. Oh, there’s a river. And a bridge. Like the one over the first river. Longer.”_

 

“Another bridge?” the queen asked after Emma conveyed what Taz saw. “Does he see another of those ‘this way to death and agony’ signs?”

 

“I don’t think he’s close enough.”

 

_“Judging by sound, this cavern feels huge. I can’t see the wall on either the right or left side.”_

 

 _“But the tunnel that leads to the bridge is right ahead of you?”_ Emma clarified.

 

_“Yes, the light from the ceiling makes something of a path from where I am to the tunnel.”_

 

Emma paused again to relay that information to Regina. Spirit of cooperation, after all. She didn’t know if another river was a good thing or not. Better than a dead end, she supposed.

 

 _“I hear something._ _Movement. There’s something here. It’s too far in the darkness. I might be able to see it if I actually entered the cave.”_

 

“He hears something moving,” she told Regina.Emma considered herself their de facto leader and believed that it was her direct responsibility to keep them alive and get them out safely. They were moving more slowly than she would like; she’d made that compromise. She couldn’t keep deferring to what seemed comfortable for everyone. She took in a deep breath. “I’m going to ask him to try and figure out what it is.” Then to Taz, “ _Can you go inside a little?”_

 

_“Alright, but Emma, I’m getting tired again.”_

 

She pushed him a little more. _“Not much longer.”_

 

 _“I found a place to land. Oh dear. There is a spider here and it is very, very large. I believe it could eat me as an_ _amuse-bouche._ _”_ His words stopped entirely for so long that Emma tensed. _“I am going to fly to another….oh dear! Let me go!”_

 

_“Taz?”_

 

 _“I ran into webbing of some kind. Highly unpleasant. Wait, something else hit me. Magical.”_ In her head his words grew faint. “ _It’s—this isn’t good. Emma—”_

 

Inside her mind, something was severed. Her mind recoiled from the abrupt absence.

 

She cradled her head in her hands. _“Taz? Taz!”_

 

Silence. She concentrated, trying to find any sign of the bond. She usually could grab hold of it, feel it like a cord she could tug between them. Now, she found nothing.

 

Emma looked around for a weapon. “I need your pickaxe,” she told Regina and grabbed it. She made herself a torch quickly. “Stay here, Taz is in trouble. There’s a giant spider.”

 

“How are you going to fight a spider with that thing and only one arm.”

 

“I don’t know, I’ll poke it to death.”

 

Regina snagged the hem of Emma’s dress. “Wait, Taz is a magical creature, isn’t he?”

 

Emma tugged herself loose. “So?”

 

“So, he can’t be arbitrarily killed. Only something specific could...”

 

Emma weighed the words against her sense of duty “These caves seem to have their own rules. He went totally silent. He’s never...this has never happened.”

 

Regina grabbed hold of Emma’s dress again. “All the more reason for us to be smart.”

 

Emma paused again. Regina’s logic seemed sound. Part of her agreed, but her personal rules prodded her, the two sides of her nature battling one another. She found herself saying, “He’s my friend. Friends don’t abandon one another.”

 

“I’m not asking you to abandon him. I’m asking you to think of your promise.”

 

Every choice she could make had sharp edges. She wondered if she had a heart, would it give her clarity or make things worse. “I’m going.” She tested the weight of the pickaxe in her hand. “Stay here.”

 

“Where could I go?”

 

Emma broke into a run.

 

Behind her, Regina’s shouts echoed after her. “Savior, don’t you dare leave me here. Emma!”


	10. Of Bad News and Planning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursdays everyone,
> 
> I want to start out today's flight with a bit of an explanation on the way I see both fantasy stories and magic. One of the key ideas on OUAT is that magic has a price. Long ago, when I was a kid, I wrote stories where I was a space pirate with magic. Somewhere along the way, I realized that for the amazing to matter and for it to feel real, the heroes must somehow sacrifice. Fantastic miracles can happen, but there should be a cost when they do. So, I can't promise you there won't be death or other bad things in this story. In fact, that's very much on the table. What I can promise is that for any price, there will be a reward of equal measure. Also, that end will be, will always be, a Swanqueen happy ending.
> 
> That being said, you can ignore all that for this chapter. Today's flight the ladies play a game and contemplate the names of monsters. 
> 
> Should you wish to express your disagreement for any of the above or call me Dr. Grimmcgrim, I can be always be reached on the Twitter.
> 
> This, is your captain speaking.

 

**Garden of Heroes**

Of Bad News and Planning

 

 

_The author wrote this prophecy:_

She who was born of stone heart will lay down her head.

She who darkened her heart will be confronted by light.

The hero who refuses to yield will seek forgotten doors of knowledge.

She will be twenty-eight when she says, “So shall it be.”

The queen will scream her defiance and surrender.

Through death will there be renewal in Ivory halls.

They will wonder then at the power of hope.

 

_We naturally veer away from uncertainty. It is a human instinct. We tend to interpret prophecies literally or make assumptions based on the bias of current context. Truth is a thing in motion, informed by time and distance. Yet we desire absolutes so deeply that we will fight wars and live our lives around things we cannot know_

__Hamil Lukas,_ _ __A Review of the Author’s Prophecies_ _

 

 

The sound of rapid footsteps approaching bounced against the cavern walls. As they came closer, a series of clicking sounds, like two sticks clacking together repeatedly, followed. Regina’s heart jolted in her chest. She grabbed for a weapon and found a fist-sized rock.

 

Emma burst out of the dark.

 

“What...”

 

The savior tossed the torch on the ground and snuffed it out. She grabbed Regina around the waist, helped her to her feet, and scattered the fire with several kicks, enveloping them in complete darkness.

 

She pulled them onto a shelf in the cave wall. They teetered there, not quite flush against the rock. They were uncomfortably close. Emma’s rapid breathing was loud against Regina’s ear. Her muscular body pressed against Regina’s back, tense and ready.

 

The clicking grew louder but slowed as it advanced toward them. Regina’s vision adjusted enough for her to see the giant creature’s shape in the dark—thin, bent legs hoisting a larger torso.

 

A tap.

 

Another.

 

She accidentally shifted and pain spiked up her leg. She had to bury her head into Emma’s arm to contain the sound.

 

The creature leaned forward, then turned as if considering where its quarry might have gone. Regina could just make out its bulbous abdomen as it took another step closer. It would surely reach the ground just below where they hid in a few more steps.

 

The tapping came once. Twice. So loud. So close.

 

Emma raised her sword, as if the idiot were going to suddenly charge forward.

 

“A rock,” she whispered into Emma’s ear.

 

“What?”

 

Regina showed her the rock she still held in her hand. The savior shook her head, not understanding how it could help them. Regina rolled her eyes and heaved it as far as she could, hoping it would land somewhere behind the monster and distract it. Her aim, which had rarely been tested in her day-to-day life, was true. The rock thudded behind the creature, rolling briefly before finally resting. The creature skittered after it, clicking violently as it tried to chase down the noise.

 

Emma helped her down. When they were on the ground, she hefted Regina over one shoulder. She placed her hand against the wall and followed it south.

 

The tapping grew closer once again, the creature moving back in their direction.  Emma kept going, cursing under her breath.

 

“Where is it,” she muttered and then suddenly stopped. She lowered Regina and half-carried, half-dragged her into the narrower part of the cave they’d traveled through the day before.

 

They went through and rested when the path widened again, hoping the spider couldn’t squeeze through the bottleneck. Regina closed her eyes and listened as hard as she could.

 

Tapping. She clutched at Emma’s gown. It felt like it was on their heels, crawling ever nearer.

 

But it stopped. It bent, and poked its head into the smaller part of the passage, unable to fit its body. Regina did not expect its head to be round, the shape of a skull.

 

The head turned one way then another before it straightened. It clicked several times but then moved away.

 

She felt Emma relax behind her, slowly loosening her hold. When the savior tried to pull away, however, Regina held on.

 

“Wait.” Regina was horrified to realize that she felt comforted by being so close to someone else, that her nerves needed it.

 

In the dark, she couldn’t see the savior’s expression, could barely make out the lines and shape of her face. Emma became someone else other than her life-long enemy. Regina stopped being the evil queen. The evil queen couldn’t show weakness, couldn’t be scared, couldn’t just want to go home. She needed to be anyone else but her now.

 

“We’re okay,” Emma said.

 

“We are far from okay.” Resignation dried the combativeness from her words.

 

“We’re alive.”

 

Regina nodded slowly.

 

“Let me help you sit down, okay?”

 

That bland voice again, nothing behind her words at all. She helped lower Regina to the ground. Regina noticed for the first time that the savior always waited after helping, making sure she was okay before letting go.

 

“What was that thing?” She wrapped her arms around her middle.

 

Emma crouched in front of her. Regina could only make out her outline. “Wait. Before we go into that, Taz is a sword again.” She stared at the sword, holding the flat of the blade in both of her hands. “But this time he won’t answer me. It’s not like before when he was trapped as a sword. It’s like he’s not there at all.” The words were spoken with some degree of puzzlement but without any other deviation from an impersonal assessment. “I usually feel a connection between us. It’s not there either. At least we can still use him as a weapon.”

 

“You just risked your life to save that sword,” Regina said. Her gaze was a combination of disbelief and agitation. Emma’s brow wrinkled, thinking that perhaps she’d offended Regina. “Why aren’t you worried? You should be frantic that you can’t feel the bond. You were just chased by some monster. You should be panicking.”

 

Emma rose. “I’m just trying to stay logicial.”

 

“Logical,” Regina repeated, the word feeling like acid on her tongue. She sat up as much as she could. She shivered as an icy gust of wind sent a deep sensation of pins and needles all over her body. “Why are you so damned calm? Why does nothing ever seem to get to you, Savior?”

 

The savior seemed frozen by the questions. She cleared her throat. “Look, this isn’t the most important thing right now.”

 

No, it wasn’t. Regina didn’t care.

 

Unbidden, the first few lines of the prophecy jumped into Regina’s mind.

 

_“She who was born of stone heart will lay down her head._

 

_She who darkened her heart will be confronted by light._

 

_The hero who refuses to yield will seek forgotten doors of knowledge.”_

 

Regina didn’t let herself become distracted, not yet. An idea laid down a foundation in the back of her mind and began to build. It just needed time.

 

In the darkness, Emma became just a disembodied voice and an easy target.

 

“What is wrong with you? I could almost understand you leaving me here, completely alone, if you ever seemed to react to anything at all,” Regina said, her anger and fear squirming inside her. “People do stupid things in the name of love—but then they act out of desperation or pain or hope. You don’t seem to feel any of those things. You aren’t even reacting to losing your friend.“ This was her way of pounding her fists against the savior, unceasing and violent. “You left me. After all of your talk about cooperation. And then you come back here facing loss without being impacted in any way. You could have been killed.” Her voice grew louder and she had to remind herself that there was danger nearby. “You could be dead. And I’d have died alone in the dark.”

 

“So, you think what happened to Taz is permanent?” the savior asked, still without a ripple of emotion.

 

“That’s what you took from what I said?”

 

“No, I just don’t know what you want me to say.”

 

Regina heard the sound of shifting fabric and could make out Emma moving close. Sitting beside her.

 

The savior grunted, leaned the sword against the wall and pressed her hand to her side. After a moment, she lifted her palm, examining it.

 

“What is it?” Regina asked.

 

“It’s nothing.”

 

“Dammit, Savior.”

 

“The spider thing bit me.” She probed near her hip again and flinched. “Well, more nipped. It’s not bad.”

 

The rush of adrenaline that had filled Regina when Emma returned to camp drained away. With a trembling hand, Regina smoothed her wild hair back from her face. “If your side is bleeding, we should look at it.”

 

“We can’t. Nothing to make a fire with. We’ll—we can head back to camp later, but it’s probably not a good idea right now. In case that thing comes back. It’s honestly just a scratch.”

 

The dark, now that they would be trapped in it for some time, became suffocating, as if it wrapped around them more and more tightly with each passing moment.

 

“Um, another thing,” Emma said. “I may have heard more than one spider. I’m not sure, I was kinda busy running. It could have just been echoes, I guess.” She paused. “The only way for me to know would to go back.”

 

“Which would be ludicrous.”

 

Emma stilled. “Well…”

 

Exhaustion drove away any edge from her voice. “You cannot be serious.”

 

“Look, we have two options. We can go south, back toward where we landed, or north toward the spider. We know what’s south. But, the cavern where I found Taz is only about twenty feet across. The tunnel on the other side leads to the bridge. Maybe we could sneak past the spider or spiders or whatever. It’s an option, right?”

 

“And how would we both manage to sneak across? I have a broken leg.”

 

“I’ll carry you.”

 

“And our supplies?”

 

“I’ll make two trips.”

 

Regina couldn’t help but laugh, everything now felt surreal. “I’m so tired,” she said, “of being in pain. And cold. And terrified. And having ludicrous choices.” She thought she heard tears in her voice; she felt them against the back of her throat but her eyes were dry.

 

“Regina.” She couldn’t recall Emma using her first name before. “I’m not sure what the hell to say. I’m not saying we have to go north, but I just feel like we should at least scout it out. I should, ah, also mention that the spider wasn’t a spider. Well, not _only_ a spider. You know centaurs? Well, it kinda had the body of a spider instead of a horse, and then the top half was a human skeleton.”

 

Regina sighed.

 

“And, I dropped the pickaxe. It’s not that far but—”

 

“Please, just stop.”

 

The savior quieted.

 

The silence made her more aware of the endless dark. She focused on Emma, using her as a distraction. She needed stillness but not to feel alone.

 

“Could you help me sit next to you, please?” Regina asked. “I can barely see you.”

 

Emma did. Both of them sat almost shoulder to shoulder, their backs to the wall. She could feel, or imagined she could, the heat from Emma’s body, providing her a slight reprieve from the cold. They sat in silence for some time until Emma began to drum her fingers against the cave floor. She understood; the silence and the lack of sight made every moment seem much longer than usual.

 

“Perhaps it would help if we conversed. About anything but these caverns.”

 

“Well, my friend August used to make us play this game. He was big on members of the rebellion bonding before a mission. I always thought it was kinda stupid but, we could try it?” Emma must have taken her silence as some kind of encouragement. She explained further, “Usually we played around campfires in groups of six of so. One person asks a question and says their own answer to it, then they call on someone else to answer the same thing. You can pass on questions, if you want. And in the interest of me not annoying you even more, we could stick to safe topics. You want to give it a go?”

 

Regina’s pride reared its head, and she wanted to refuse. Yet she could not make herself. “Very well.”

 

“Why don’t I start? Um, well, you know the answer to how old I am but how old are you?”

 

“That question is simply rude.”

 

“Your Majesty.” Emma said, a heavy reminder in her voice that Regina had, at least tentatively, agreed to this.

 

“Fine. The truth is that I am not entirely certain. After I turned sixty, I refused to keep track. I continued to mark the day but not my age.”

 

“How are you that old?”

 

“Magic. I elongated my life with a spell. I cast the same one on Rochinate.”

 

“So you and that horse will never die?”

 

Regina couldn’t help her sardonic reply. “To some degree, that depends on you and what happens when we get out of here.”

 

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

 

“Everything dies. However, the spell allows someone to live for a very long time. Depends on the quality of the ingredients, the point at which the spell is cast and the power of the caster. The crown might have amplified the effects. I am not sure. It has a strong presence within it, though it has never spoken with me like Taz does with you. I believe it is my turn, is it not? Your magic item, how long have you had it? I have had the crown since a few months after your parents married. ”

 

Emma instinctively lay her hand on Taz’s blade. “I got him when I was six. He’s just always been there.” She pointed to her head. “Or here.” Emma paused, thinking. When she finally asked her question, Regina got the impression she was looking away from her. “What’s the nicest thing you’ve ever done? I host a festival for townspeople at the edge of the Moon Forest. Well, the rebels do anyway. The next one is in a couple of months. I’m not the brains of the rebellion, I’m more the sword arm and the mascot. But I always go to the festival. Even after I...”

 

A pop of something hit the ground a few yards from them. They froze. Regina closed her eyes tightly.

 

They both waited.

 

When no further noises came, they slowly let down their guard.

 

“So anyway,” Emma said. “I became a farmer for awhile there.”

 

Regina couldn’t remember the original question, fear having scattered her concentration. “You were a farmer?”

 

“Yeah. Planted crops and everything. I liked it. It was peaceful.”

 

Regina could not get her mind around such an image. “And the rebellion and the lords just let you play Farmer Brown?”

 

“I can be stubborn.”

 

“Yes, I have noticed that.”

 

Emma nudged her, something that felt far too informal, but perhaps for the moment could be tolerated. “You still owe me an answer on the ‘nicest thing you’ve done’ question.”

 

After she made Snow a statue, the years trickled by, leaving little trace of their passage. She furiously waged her war on heroes and chased magical knowledge. Her collections became much more important to her than anything else. Time wore away most of her anger, but it could still be summoned more easily than any other emotion. She sought to think more than to feel, her and her black heart.

 

Then the mirror showed her Henry. She wanted more for him but had no path nor any understanding of how to build one. He mattered but not in any practical way. Not yet.

 

To answer Emma’s question she would have to admit it had been at least twenty-seven years since she had considered someone else, much less tried to act on their behalf.

 

“I shall pass on that question,” Regina said with a casual air. “I also cannot think of anything to ask. Perhaps this is a good time to stop the game.”

 

Emma shrugged and reached for her sword. She straightened her legs and lay the blade across them. “We should take turns on watch. Just in case.”

 

“Do you think you can manage to not blindly run off toward your doom if I go to sleep?”

 

“Okay, point taken. I charged off and I did it without your agreement. In my defense, it’s kinda just what I do. Habit.”

 

“Well, my habit is to kill those who desert me. I have modified my behavior, given the circumstances.”

 

“I’m just saying that I don’t do it on purpose. I guess I’ve always thought that it’s just what a hero does.”

 

“And you’re a hero?”

 

“No, but I’d like to be one day. I just think people have to earn stuff like that.” Regina’s eyes jumped to Emma’s face and strained to make out her expression. “In the meantime, I am gonna keep my promise about getting us out of here.”

 

Her mother had constantly lied to her “for her own good.” Her father’s strength wavered too many times for her to depend on him, though she had faith in his intentions. Show White wanted to see herself as good so badly that her motives couldn’t be trusted, though she always kept her word. The lords of the kingdom swore fealty and a hundred other things but meant nothing they said.

 

The savior, though, she believed her—intent, strength and words.

 

The discovery was odd and unwelcome.

 

“Savior,” she said before sleep took her. “About your vermin. I do not believe the change to him is permanent. I told you, magic things cannot be randomly destroyed. But there are traps or spells that can cancel out magic. At least temporarily.”

 

She wasn’t sure if simply offering the truth was the same as compassion. It would be foolish and unlike her to fall prey to sentiment over their temporary alliance.

 

##############################

 

Emma’s eyes kept closing without her meaning them to. Regina had taken the first watch; this was hers. She should stand. Move around. Just the thought of it exhausted her further. She just wanted to sleep.

 

She didn’t feel fear, only the usual detachment. She couldn’t stop her mind from reaching the conclusion over and over that things were desperate. No Taz. No food. Monsters in to the north and the south. One weapon—Taz in his dormant state.

 

What did you do, when logic didn’t seem to help at all? When it told you you were screwed?

 

Taz would say…she tried to think of it. Her best friend’s constant council escaped her at the moment. She thumbed through her memories to find anything that might be helpful.

 

_“You can do great things, if you hope and believe, Emma.”_

 

Her mother's letters.

 

They didn’t exactly offer anything she could use right now. She didn’t have hope. Never had. A hero needed a heart for that.

 

_“You’ll make mistakes, Emma. Trust the wrong people sometimes. Or mistrust the right people. There will be a hundred moments when you don’t know what to do. Don’t ever be afraid of mistakes, Emma. Make plenty of them. Dive in, fumble, take paths that everyone tells you are wrong but you think might be right. Because that’s just having a good life. And beyond all else, beyond even seeing you again, that’s what I wish for you.”_

 

All of that was well and good when life and death wasn’t on the line but, what about when it was?

 

She started to take an action without thinking, before fully realizing what she was about to do.

 

“Regina,” she whispered. “Hey, you awake?”

 

She fought through a dozen mental arguments before her hand reached out, sliding lightly over Regina’s.

 

The connection to her heart suddenly came alive, flooding her.

 

She missed her friend. He’d marked so much of her life, like a long path of footprints in the snow. She needed him to be okay. She wondered if one day she would be able to laugh with him or to react him calling her “little bit” or his endless faith in her.

 

She brought the pommel close and kissed it, then held it close.

 

Taz would say that either north or south would be quite the adventure.

 

She smiled at the thought. A brightness touched her, like light reflecting off a lake and making the water shine.

 

She wondered if that was what hope felt like.

 

#########################

 

Regina felt clearer after resting, a surge of mental energy filling her.

 

“You said that the spider was skeletal—the top half?” Emma nodded. “Then the school of magic that created it is most likely necromancy.”

 

Emma had no idea what that meant.

 

“You would start by raising the dead,” Regina said. “Then use transfiguration magic to combine it with a dead spider.” Emma was certain her face still didn’t show any true understanding. “My point is that someone undoubtedly made that thing on purpose. The question is why.” She grew pensive. “While I was unconscious you and the bird collected water regularly correct? But the Brylu didn’t attack us till we reached this side of the river?”

 

“Right. So...you think that Flo was made by the same people who made the spider?”

 

“Flo?”

 

Emma motioned behind them with her thumb. “The whateveryamacallit we ran into in the river.”

 

“The Brylu. You named it?” Regina shook her head. “Of course you did. There are spells that can trigger if certain conditions are met. But that would usually be in instances where they are guarding something. If that’s true, then the farther north we go, the more danger we may run into.”

 

“We can go south but we’d have to navigate the river somehow,” Emma reasoned. “I saw wooden planks bracing a part of the tunnel. I could try and get them to make a raft or something. I might collapse the whole tunnel though. Also, ‘raft’ might be overstating it, cause I have no idea how to build one. I think it would just be the planks tied with lots of string. Which doesn’t seem like it will work now that I think about it. Grumpy could do it.”

 

Emma thought she might be babbling a little. Her thoughts were too light, barely attached to her at all. Floating. She wondered if it was the lack of food, then asked herself how long they could survive without it. Days? A week? She didn’t know; her lessons about this cave ended with “whatever you do, do not go into the unmapped part.”

 

Regina continued to speak and Emma had to corral her attention to listen. “The Qualsara fled here and lived for many years. They hated magic users. It’s possible these are merely ancient traps left behind to keep their secrets. It is said that they tended to work in metal or wood and could create amazing things. It is also said that Muirgein herself dealt with them punishing them for invading the sanctity of her sister’s final resting place.”

 

“I barely remember that story, but didn’t Muirgein kill her sister in the first place?”

 

“Yes, and then was filled with remorse, apparently. So much so that she saved Soras's injured unborn child and searched the world for a means to cure her.” Her eyes cut towards Emma. “I suppose you would consider that redemption.”

 

“Well, the story would sort of suck if it ended with ‘and Muirgein killed her sister. The end.’”

 

“The whole story is likely a way for simpletons to explain why magic—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “We need to focus. The caverns have always been rumoured to have dark forces within them. But what we are observing is more organized than that. Including what happened to the ball of fluff. Another possibility is that a fellow sorcerer hid something here. Any sorcerer worth anything at all would have an exit near whatever he or she was hiding. Just in case of emergencies. It may be that, even with the risk, north is the best way to go.”

 

“Okay, so I’ll scout ahead, recover the stuff from our campsite, then….”

“No. In the spirit of cooperation” —Regina made sure to emphasize the phrase— “we will go together. When we reach the cave with the spiders, you’ll proceed forward just enough to assess if we have enough cover to try and sneak past. You will then come back and if we both agree, we will go forward. You will carry the supplies and I will do my best to quietly limp along behind you.”

 

“Regina…”

 

“You are not going to make that crossing twice. I still need you, Savior. I will let you know when I no longer do. Are we agreed?”

 

She sounded every bit the queen, a picture of beautiful bravado. Emma knew she should object. It didn’t seem heroic, for one thing. But, Emma couldn’t really be sure her plan was better than Regina’s. She also didn’t think there was any chance of changing the queen’s mind.

 

She wondered what she might feel right now, were her hand to find Regina’s bare skin. Amusement, maybe. Admiration, perhaps.

 

Laughter? A grin?

 

“Well?” Regina demanded.

 

Emma laid a hand over her heart and bowed slightly. “Yes, Your Majesty.”


	11. Of Goodness and Heroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday everyone!  
> As a reminder, I crazily entered SQ Supernova so at some point, I may need to take a few weeks off. Yanno, to write OTHER things that still have a certain blonde and brunette. Also, I want to share with you a tip that might help you avoid an icy silence. If you live with an editor, do NOT say that Grammarly is a 'pretty good' app. I impart my hard-won wisdom as best I can. 
> 
> I want to take a moment to thank all of you for your support. Please keep it coming. It means a lot to me. I have lovely things coming up. But first? Another cliffhanger. 
> 
> This is your captain speaking.
> 
> Update on May 16th - Hey all, it's my b-day today! And the last couple of days have been hectic. Also I've been taking a little me time saving Montana (Far Cry 5). So, sadly no new post this week but I'll be back next week same bat time and channel. In the meantime, know that Montana is safe and sound in my care.

**Garden of Heroes**

 

**Of Goodness and Heroes**

 

 **_“_ ** _...but an important question to ask yourself and keep asking, my dearest daughter. Thinking back through your life, what is the best thing you have ever done?”_

 

  * __Snow White Gealban, letter to her daughter.__



 

 

They ran from the spider out of necessity but it had taken a toll. First in the loss of the pickaxe Regina had been using to walk. Secondly, periods of rest no longer revived Emma. Instead she stayed depleted and used up, once hard leather that flipped and flopped limply instead of holding its shape.

 

As they made their way back to their campsite, Emma swallowed convulsively and kept regathering her wandering mind. Dehydration made her lips stick together and coated her tongue in a foul-tasting layer of cotton.

 

Regina insisted on walking most of the way back but needed to lean on Emma.“You expend less energy if I contribute, in whatever limited way,” she said, voice flat.

 

Their conversations today were all in shorthand, speaking as little as possible, as if doing so would be that final added weight that would make all of this too heavy to carry anymore.

 

When they were close, she saw how tight and hunted Regina’s face was. She didn’t truly relax even when they took breaks. She kept glancing over her shoulder, as something might be following them.

 

The cold was unrelenting, except for the heat of Regina’s body against her. It made her crave more. She breathed in a faint perfume in Regina’s hair, detectable only because her sense of smell had been heightened by her starving body. Her unfocused thoughts took her back to the banquet, and in those daydreams, she ate her fill. She danced with the queen while they bantered. She restored her parents. Sometimes her thoughts were so vivid that she had to violently shake free of them, remind herself of where they truly were.

 

Emma called to Taz several times as they walked; still only emptiness where the bond had been. When they finally reached camp, she lay him down on her blanket before she did anything else.

She lit a small campfire and helped Regina lay down. She fetched water from the ever-dripping stalagmite nearby and offered Regina the iron pot first. “Drink as much as you want, Your Majesty,” Emma said, trying to sound reassuring. “We should fill up before we get going.”

 

Regina drank half of the water as fast as she could in loud gulps, then held out the pot to Emma.

 

“You don’t want more?”

 

“Drink. I’ll have more after.”

 

Emma didn’t debate it further. She refilled the pot six times; each of them greedy for as much water as they could have.

 

Emma didn’t rest until she searched the tunnel ahead and found the pickaxe she had abandoned when she ran from the spider.

 

Regina lips lifted in something less than a smile but still in acknowledgement when Emma gave it to her. She patted the ground next to her. “Your bite wound. I should look.” Emma handed her the small, single torch and stretched out to make sure Regina had access to the wound.

 

At the start of the day, Emma had given Regina the dagger she’d promised her before everything had happened. The queen used it to probe her skin. “I don’t see anything.” She murmured. She set down the knife and dipped a bit of torn cloth in water, washing the wound. “But we need better light.”

 

“Taz said there was daylight ahead.”

 

Regina nodded.

 

Emma fell asleep soon after, unable to help it.

 

She woke, not sure how much time had passed. The sleep only made her want much more. She ignored it, pushed to her feet and refilled the water pot again. She hovered near the dripping water source, refilling and drinking more times than she bothered to keep track of. After, with a full offering of water, she hunched down and woke up Regina.

 

When they departed, Emma took only what they absolutely needed from the campsite: wood scraps, the blankets, and the pot

 

When they came to a particularly rocky part of the path, Emma’s knees almost buckled and she barely regained her balance in time. When it happened again on much smoother ground, her eyes connected with Regina’s, an acknowledgement that things were rapidly becoming more and more dire. Still, she delayed their breaks as long as she could and kept saying, “Just a little farther.”

 

Regina sighed, “And they call _me_ evil.”

 

Finally, the tunnel widened and the air felt wetter. Emma remembered it from her escape the day before. “Almost there. We’re close.” She said, wondering if she could trust her shaky memory at all.

 

But yes, after following a curve, the opening to the large cave came into view. There was light up ahead, so Emma put out their small torch.

 

“Let’s go back a little,” she told Regina. “We’ll get you situated. I’ll take a look ahead.” They moved back a few yards, and she helped Regina put down a blanket and sit.

 

“Remember the undead have only two senses,” Regina said. “Hearing and vision. Those senses are frail, products of magic. They are also stupid. It’s why throwing the rock worked earlier.”

 

Emma nodded. “Got it. Be smarter than the undead spider.”

 

Regina’s lips hinted at a smile. “If you can be, yes. You haven’t named the spider?”

 

“It bit me. It can fuck off.”

 

“Savior...” Regina’s voice was tentative. Emma crouched down, waiting as silence spread between them. Regina dropped her gaze to somewhere over Emma’s shoulder. She cleared her throat. “Remember that I still have need of you.”

 

“I’ll try, Your Majesty.”

 

#######################################

 

Mercifully, a thin line of daylight slanted from the entrance to the opposite wall of the cave.

 

She moved to one knee and cursed the inadequacies of being stuck down here in a ball gown for the thousandth time since it constrained some of her freedom of movement.

 

She heard distant skittering noises but they echoed, making it hard to judge where or how many creatures there were.

 

The tunnel to the bridge was directly across from her and, since the room was round, it wasn’t far away. Large boulders and stalagmites were scattered throughout that would give them cover. She scouted out a path for them, noting three places they could hide and catch their breath. Twenty feet to the other side. It was nothing, in theory.

 

She heard tapping from somewhere to her left. It chilled the blood in her veins. She crept just inside the cave, bracing herself on her hands. The light here helped, but even better, light seemed to be coming from above the bridge too; she could see the specks of dust drifting in the sunlight above it.

 

She noticed the cold had lessened a few degrees.

 

More tapping approached from the opposite direction, her right.

 

_Shit._

 

It wandered closer. She could make out an outline now, a skull on a long bony neck, the separated ribs of the torso resting on eight massive legs. She shrunk back, holding her breath.

 

The one closest to her approached where light touched the ground, casting a large shadow of its front legs and the tiny hairs on it. The spider flexed up and down. Its image on the ground grew much larger and smaller in turn as it did. Slow movements echoed again, from further back on the right but coming towards her. Soon another shadow appeared near the first.

 

Three spiders so far. Three. At least.

 

The plan to sneak past them suddenly seemed like an impossible feat. If she had her speed…maybe...

 

_Taz?_

 

_Taz!_

 

_I need you, buddy._

 

Nothing.

 

################################

 

With impressive neutrality, Regina listened as the savior reported what she’d found.. She felt Emma’s eyes on her waiting for something, a reaction probably.

 

Horror or despair, perhaps.

 

She felt neither. Maybe exhaustion made her numb. “I’m not entirely surprised, Savior. One guardian isn’t as effective as two or three. Assuming my theory is right.”

 

Emma collapsed beside her, close but not touching. Regina didn’t react to that either. There was a normality to Emma’s nearness now. Even, a comfort.

 

“Emma? Do you think you could make it back to the other river? If you had to?”

 

“The one with Flo?”

 

“Yes. I—I don’t know how long it would take. I am not sure if I can.”

 

Emma followed Regina’s thought process. She slowly nodded, acknowledging the point. “No, I probably can’t either.”

 

The admission pounded into the rock and the walls, and a shock ran through Regina. For the hundredth time today, she stared back at the tunnel they’d travelled. It felt like gauging the strength of an enemy before battle “So we really only have one choice. It might be more accurate to say ‘once chance’.”

 

Emma reached for Regina’s arm. “Look, we’re going to make it.”

 

Regina allowed the touch but she didn’t want to hear false promises. “Don’t do that.” The cold around them reached into her now, curling around her heart. “Don’t lie. My leg, three spiders, your bad arm. Our odds are not even fifty-fifty. You know that.”

 

“I’m used to bad odds.”

 

“You’re used to having magic. And so am I.”

 

“Okay,” Emma whispered. “Okay look, it’s not good but we still have a chance, right? Maybe it’s time for this thing though?” She reached for the rope around her waist that held the crown and untied it. She curled her hand around it, weighing it, perhaps remembering the cost it had extracted from her so far.

 

Then she offered the Crystal Crown to the queen. Regina reached for it, vulnerable as a young child after a nightmare, wondering if monsters were real and if they could gobble her up. She questioned if it would be different now than it was a few days ago, if she would sense the deep well of power. If it would reach toward her magic, as it normally did, itchy and uncomfortable.

 

No. She felt only a few wisps of connection. She tried to cast through it and her head didn’t pound, but only a few drops of black ichor dripped from the crown.

Her brief hopes shattered. She covered her face with her palm, fingers pressed hard into her skin.

 

“Regina?”

 

“It—The other day when I grabbed it, it didn’t seem to be working properly. The power—it didn’t feel the same.”

 

“And now?”

 

“Still very weak. Much weaker than it should be.”

 

Regina placed the crown on her head and its shadow formed on the wall. The triangular, organized shape of the spires seemed odd given the chaos they’d been living in for days now. She owed it to both of them to try again. She summoned her fury at being trapped in this horrible place and tried to let that energy expand in her chest. It started, but fizzled. She couldn’t do more than summon a tiny spark to her fingertips.

 

Emma lay back, eyes on the ceiling, absorbing it all. “So, the legendary Crystal Crown you’ve used to keep the entire kingdom at bay doesn’t work now?”

 

“Something is impacting it. Like with the outspoken mutant chicken you travel with.” She felt the urge to apologize, which was ridiculous. “My bargain to cooperate with you doesn’t require me to put myself at your mercy more than I already am.” She refused to scrape and grovel to any misplaced guilt. “It’s not as if you’ve told me all your secrets? You—there’s something wrong with you. You don’t react in any way you should. You don’t react at all.”

 

Emma turned her face away.

 

“Why did you ask me about the curse? The other night before we slept, you asked me if had done anything besides turning your parents to crystal.” The savior didn’t move or answer. Regina smiled thinly, superior, trying to prove a point. “You see? We’ve both held plenty of things back.”

 

“Yeah, not telling you about that is exactly the same thing as you not telling me the all-powerful crown is useless,” Emma answered dryly. She held up a hand, stopping Regina from responding. “I thought the crown was a fail-safe, something we could use if things seemed completely screwed. But, we’re on our own. It’s just you and me.”

 

All of Regina’s bravado faded. The truth of their situation would not be ignored. She wrapped her arms around herself, shoulders hunched and tight as she fought the battering maelstrom of fear inside her. “You and those damn spiders. I’m not sure which is worse.”

 

She didn’t mean it. A fierce certainty burned in her that Emma had done everything possible to make sure all three of them would get out of this alive. She could find no fault in anything Emma had done.

 

“All of this time and Snow White’s daughter is the person I’m stuck…” She could not summon the old anger at her nemesis. It stayed flat and empty inside her. “I will not…” Her determination eluded her too, missing in action. “I won’t—” Tears blurred her vision. “Dammit, I won’t...I don’t want to…” Her chin trembled before she could say “die.”

 

“There’s been so little in my life that’s been mine,” Regina whispered and felt several tears skim down her face. “So much more loss than happiness. More pain than joy. It’s not fair. It’s never been fair. There’s another prophecy, that I will have a child. I keep...I keep telling myself it’s a sign that we’ll make it. But I know the truth about prophecies: they aren’t guarantees.”

 

Emma’s soft voice broke into the turbulence of her thoughts. “Have you thought what you might call the kid? The baby in your prophecy?”

 

“Henry.” She could not contain the reverence in her heart as she said it.

 

Emma nodded. “I don’t have many dreams. None, really. Yours is a good one.”

 

“You know, I—I tried to help the people in the Whitranni kingdom. After your mother. I barely knew where to start but, I thought, maybe a school. I’m not just...evil.”

 

“Can I ask you something? After my mom, did you go to the people and meet them, ask them what they wanted or at least let them see you up close when you weren’t trying to blast their faces off?”

 

The words calmed Regina,  perhaps because they gave her something else to think about besides their impending suicide mission.

 

“Maybe it wouldn’t have helped,” Emma continued, “I dunno.”

 

“They hate me, Emma. They always have.”

 

“Do they? Do they even know who you are? I had a friend, she helped raise me. She pushed me to go among the people. But they expected all these things from me. I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended to be someone I thought they needed.”

 

Regina’s gaze held onto Emma’s eyes, the more she spoke, the more they became a touchstone.

 

“I retired for awhile. I had this excuse that the nobles were assholes. The truth is that I had been waiting for a reason. I didn’t want to pretend anymore. I wanted to be anyone else in the world except the fucking savior. But, I always wanted to make a difference. Be a hero.”

 

Her words were slow, each one held up by a hundred thoughts under them. Her voice continued to be detached but Emma Swan meant every word. Her motives and her heart were pure. Like Snow way back when, perhaps, but...different, based on an uncharmed life.

 

Emma laid a hand on her sword. “Taz too. He was a bad guy a long time ago, but he changed. He wants to better the world somehow. To do good.”

 

“But maybe,” Emma didn’t break their stare, “the only way to do that is to let people see you. To go out among them, but, as you. Maybe unless you do that, you can’t really tell what’s good anyway. I’d like the chance to test that out. Maybe you could too. If nothing else, it’s probably harder for them to hate you up close than if you’re holed up in a castle.”

 

“If we get out of this,” Regina said, the word “if” making her wipe away her tears. The longer they took strength from one another in this moment, the more her heart’s desire grew from simply saving herself to not letting Emma Swan down.

 

Emma nudged her. “Yeah.”

 

#############

 

Their first destination was a boulder she could make out just where the light began. It was only a few yards away.

 

Emma’s plan was to go first with the supplies, then wait for Regina before taking on the next bit. Three parts to the journey, slow and steady.

 

She glanced at Regina once more, uncertain. Deep down, she still thought carrying her was the better option.

 

“Could you go? And try not to slow me down.” Regina said and pushed at her back lightly.

 

“Right.”

 

A couple of feet into the cave, sticky webbing restrained Emma briefly. From the ceiling, a blue light shone down on her. She panicked, trying to scramble back, but her whole body seized, every muscle contracting. Her head tingled, not painfully, but like stinging drops of rain. Then it stopped, a sudden retreat of both the sensation and the light.

 

She heard the tapping of multiple legs on the ground, quickly approaching. She dove behind the boulder, curling into as small a ball as she could. She’d prepared for this, to a degree. She grabbed for a rock in the leather sack at her side. She didn’t throw it, not yet. That trick might only work once, after all.

 

The legs of the spider creatures pattered against the ground so fast there was no break between sounds.

 

She closed her eyes and waited.

 

The creature stopped. Two taps. Then more. Closer. .

 

 _Fuck._ She really hated spiders.

 

In the silence, she held her breath and clutched Taz’s hilt. She heard legs scratch the ground again, this time away from her.

 

Emma slumped in relief. When she couldn’t hear the spider any more, she turned to Regina and motioned for her to come. She rose so she could keep an eye out.

 

She heard a gasp and turned. The blue glow outlined Regina as she tried to break through the webbing that trapped her. As the light around Regina subsided, they froze. Emma motioned for her to go back.

 

Regina frowned and moved forward instead.

 

More tapping. Instead of freezing or limping back into the tunnel, Regina continued toward her. mouthing the word “go”. Emma shook her head but obeyed, moving to the second hiding spot. Regina followed.

 

Emma could see the shadow of a spider searching near the entrance of the cave. It loomed eight feet behind Regina, its back to her. Regina continued to move very carefully.

 

When she reached Emma, Emma whispered near her cheek. “You’re insane.”

 

The corner of Regina’s mouth stole upward.

 

They huddled silently until the spiders lost interest and tapped a few times to one another before abandoning the chase. Emma pointed to a grouping of stalagmites up ahead, the last bit of cover before crossing the seven- or eight-foot space to the tunnel.

 

Emma crouched low and peered around the stalagmite they hid behind, trying to make sure the webby bastards were really gone. She went first again, relaxing after the first step or two. Because it really seemed like they had pulled off this impossible plan, snuck past the spiders and lived to tell about it.

 

The tied stack of sticks threatened to fall from her shoulder and she caught it quickly. She shifted to wipe the sweat from her brow. And then, the iron pot slid off her opposite shoulder, hitting the ground with a clang.

 

Skittering noises—many—sped towards them. Emma let the pot stay where it was and charged back to Regina. “I’m carrying you now, right?”

 

She tried to manage Regina’s weight and all their other belongings but things kept falling. She let them and focused on carrying Regina and running through the tunnel.

 

She set Regina down and took a defensive stance in front of the bridge. “Go,” Emma said. “Get across. Start to cut the rope but wait till I’m halfway across before cutting it completely.”

 

“What about you?”

 

“Will you just go!”

 

###########################################

 

It was the stupidest and bravest thing Regina had ever witnessed. As Emma retreated, the width of the bridge allowed only one of the spiders to attack her at a time. Taz, however skillfully Emma swung it, didn’t seem to be making much of an impact.

 

Regina sawed at the thick rope holding the bridge up as fast as she could.

 

It seemed to take hours, but finally the rope was cut to the point of breaking.

 

“Emma!”

 

Emma turned and ran for it, making a long jump as the bridge collapsed.

 

She didn’t make it, instead hitting the water with a splash. She swam toward shore as best she could with one arm. Regina leaned on one hand and stretched out her pickaxe. Emma grabbed it and used it to pull herself onto the shore.

 

One of the spiders hit the water and its legs curled up to its chest almost instantly, unmoving. The others made it back to their side of the the river and paced there frantically. One reared up on its back legs in fury

 

For a time, Regina wasn’t aware of anything except the sound of her beating heart, the fact that she still lived, and the insanity of what they had just done.

 

“Holy shit.” Emma lifted up her palm. “High five.”

 

She laughed and almost complied with the idiotic request. And then she heard the bubbling of water.

 

“Emma.” Regina grabbed her arm and pointed downstream.

 

Emma sat up with a groan, stared at the water, mouth open and closing several times, and said in that unemotional way of hers, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”.

 


	12. Of Unexpected Feasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday Everybody,  
> I suspect that many of you, upon reading the title to this part will be like, "FINALLY!" This is a reasonable reaction. Turbulence one this leg of the trip starts out rough and bumpy. However, it then evens out and we have a pleasant flight from there continuing for the next few chapters. 
> 
> Your in-flight meal will be lobster and wine. Enjoy! Also, there will be a Mariachi band. because everything is better with one. 
> 
> I want to thank you again (as I will continue to do) for all of your support. This story is a huge experiment for me and there have been so many times that doubt has attacked me as I wrote this. A friend commented that the style here is a slight departure from my usual style. This is true and intentional. As I read a bunch of fantasy stories to prep for this, I tried to incorporate elements that seemed to be prevalent in the fantasy genre. Lore, and setting mostly. What won't be different is that there are some hugely emotional moments coming up. Thank all of you for your support. Please keep it coming.
> 
> Also, thank you to my wife who is much more patient and loving and generous than I could ever express in words. 
> 
> This, is your captain speaking.

**Garden of Heroes**

 

**Of Unexpected Feasts**

 

 **_“_ ** _...it is known that the Qualsara made amazing things. For two years, though, they were renowned for their wine. Now, bottles are worth entire kingdoms. Men have been murdered for them.”_

Diaz Lionel, wine merchant

 

The Brylu dove, churning the river as it barrelled towards them. The creature’s ’giant body only partially covered by the water.

 

“Flo?!” Emma pulled herself from the water and to her feet, panting. “Wait, do you think that’s a new Flo or the old Flo?”

 

“Perhaps you should ask it,” Regina said.

 

The monster burst upward and a wave of water drenched Regina, partially hitting Emma. This Brylu wore a helmet, but instead of horns, iron spikes circled the top, an awful crown.

 

Its blue eyes narrowed.

 

Regina searched for a way to get away from the water. The shoreline was thin, only a few feet between the cave wall and the edge of the water. She saw no immediate way to escape its range. Without thinking, Regina lifted her hands and tried to call upon her magic. Only to find nothing there.

 

Before, her magic had not responded to her will or had taunted her with flickers of power, but it was there, just not accessible. Now that place inside her felt hollow. Panic crawled up her neck, tightening there.

 

She froze.

 

She thought of the crown, tied to Emma’s waist, riding on her hip. Too far away to be of use, assuming she could summon the magic inside.

 

Emma, though, stupidly heroic, took a position between Regina and the Brylu, sword before her.

 

“I don’t suppose we could talk about this?” Emma asked. An immediate answer came in the form of a tentacle whipping toward her. Emma, exhausted, dove to the right but couldn’t quite escape the blow. The end of the tentacle cracked against her legs. She struggled to her feet, holding the back of her thigh.

 

When a pincher sliced through the air at her, she swung her sword wildly. The sword edge cut deeply and stuck. Emma strained to pull it free again.

 

Regina screamed a warning but Emma didn’t have time to react. She lost her grip on Taz as another tentacle attack swept her off her feet. The creature was distracted for a moment, slamming its impaled limb into the water, then the shore, trying to shake the blade free.

 

Emma groaned and frowned at her now empty hands. “I need your pickaxe,” she muttered, and rushed to it on hands and knees. Her breathing was still strained. Her eyes were wide and Regina wasn’t entirely sure they were focused.

 

Still, Emma didn’t seem to know how to quit. With the sharp head of the tool in her hand, she surged at the Brylu. The monster—the savior would likely call it Flo 2—tried to snap its massive jaws around her.

 

Regina’s eyes panned the cave wall again for a tunnel opening, or a place they could withdraw far enough away to be safe.

 

She found no immediate solution.

 

The savior had ducked under the beast’s chin and now was stabbing wherever she could reach, mainly where the tentacles sprouted from the torso. It howled, a sound that rang with more than one voice, then a tentacle caught Emma’s legs.  

 

Regina patted the ground with her hand and found a rock. She threw it at the Brylu’s head with all her strength.

 

She missed.

 

She pushed herself up, leaning on the hand that still held the dagger, hoping for better leverage. She heaved another rock. _Insanity must be catching_ , she thought, even as this time she managed to strike its chin.

 

The monster focused on her.

 

Regina called to her magic again, straining. The empty place inside her remained lifeless.

 

Pinchers speared at her, opening at the last moment to close around her torso. It dangled her in the air, then lifted her toward its mouth.

 

“Emma!”

 

Emma saw, but the beast still held her just as firmly. She plunged the spike of the pickaxe into the tentacle wrapped around her. The Brylu shrieked in pain. At the same moment, Regina was just able to get her arms free. Using both hands, she stabbed her dagger into the skin above the pincher that held her.

 

Flo flung her away. She crashed to the ground, skidding to a stop. A sudden grinding pain from her bad leg sent shockwaves through her, making her stomach dry heave.

 

She heard splashing, yelling, and angry screeches. It took all of her strength, all of her focus to lift her head despite the ever-increasing throbs of pain that spread up her body.

 

Emma leaped and gripped a barnacle on the creature’s skin. She pulled herself up and plunged the pickaxe into the Brylu. She stabbed again and again; a rust crimson color started to spread out around her.

 

A tentacle grabbed her weakly and Emma didn’t even struggle. The Brylu bobbed back down into the water, wheezing, its head twitching several times before it finally stilled.

 

Emma grabbed onto the tentacle around her, keeping herself above water. “Sorry,” she muttered, barely audible. “I think I dropped the pickaxe again.”

 

Emma floated on her back toward shore, giving small kicks, too drained to do more. She managed to beach herself in a fetal position in the shallow water. She muttered another apology and then her eyes closed.

 

It took Regina a considerable amount of time to crawl towards her, tears streaking down her dirty face from the pain. When she reached her she checked for a pulse.

 

Alive.

 

She clutched the back of Emma’s gown to stop Emma from drifting deeper into the water.

 

She didn’t have the energy for reason. If she had, it might have told her that perhaps letting the savior drown was the best course of action.

 

She held on.

  


################################

 

The light flick of water woke Emma.

 

She smelled...something fishy nearby.

 

She opened her eyes and found herself lying near Regina, fists clutching dirt. She pulled herself a few more inches from the water, and every muscle she had burned all at once.

 

She looked over her shoulder, blinking at the giant Brylu drifting dead in the water. “Hey Regina?” She shook her. “Regina?” She did it again, a little bit harder. Regina turned her head towards her. “You okay?”

 

“My leg. I may have reinjured it.”

 

Emma nodded but couldn’t make herself move anymore. She lay her head on the sand and slept or blacked out. She just knew that time passed and there was no pain.

 

Eventually, she woke to Regina calling her name. “Emma?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I’ve been thinking. I believe we can eat Brylu.”

 

Emma’s eyes snapped open.

 

###############################

  


Brylu meat was tough as leather and chewy.

 

Emma didn’t care.

 

She had hacked off a tentacle and dragged it to Regina. They cut small bits of it off with her dagger. They peeled off the skin as best they could to get to the meat. Regina kept reminding Emma to eat slowly.

 

They had no fire, nor anything to make it, and it was dark. But they had something to eat and plenty of water.

 

Despite the pain she was in, Regina smiled now and again as they ate. Emma, often clueless about emotions, understood. Each and every bite saved them, placed them a little further from death’s reach. For the first time in days, her head began to clear. Her stomach bulged a little, but a pleasant warmth spread over her skin. It reminded her of eating stew in her farmhouse after a long day hunting in the first snowfall of winter.

 

But she noticed the flinches Regina kept giving, the stiffness to her movements, a strain in her voice. It reminded Emma of their first days in the caverns.

 

Up above light reflected off something glassy on the ceiling. The effect wasn’t much better than low torchlight; not bright enough to do anything useful. Further upriver, they could see a giant round opening about forty feet up the wall, showing a little of the waning sunset. Emma lifted her eyes to the reflective ceiling, not sure what was so mirror-like up there.

 

She dropped her eyes and tried to think of something practical that might help. She untied the crown from her waist and set it next to Regina. “Maybe you should carry this. I don’t know if it works now or not, but…”

 

“Thank you Emma,” she said and it seemed sincere enough. She hugged herself, probably fending off the chilly air.

 

“I’m sorry I dropped, well, everything else. All our gear. In the spider cave. I’ve been thinking of trying to go back…”

 

“No,” Regina gritted out, repeating the word louder after a beat. “No.”

 

“We’ll have actual light in the morning. Probably be warmer too. We can look at your leg. And I’ll find Taz. Maybe after that, we can explore.”

 

Regina nodded, body shivering every now and again.

 

“If you’re cold, I could maybe...cover you in a couple of tentacles.”

 

“I don’t think my leg or my body could handle the weight. It’s also possible I would die from the smell.”

 

Emma scooted nearer and offered her more meat. They almost touched and she could feel Regina’s body heat, subtle but providing a small comfort to her body.

 

“Don’t kill me for this, okay?” From behind, Emma extended her legs on either side of Regina’s body. She carefully propped the queen’s head and shoulders into her lap.

 

“What are you…”

 

Emma started to rub her palms up and down Regina’s arms. She paused, wanting to be certain Regina both understood what she was doing and actually wanted her to do it.

 

Slowly, Regina’s body relaxed “I’ll kill you if you stop that.”

 

“Deal.”

 

She tried to be careful not to touch skin, but there were so many tears in their clothing now. She kept her hands moving fast and light and ignored any sign of emotions surging to the surface.

  
Eventually, the queen slept. Emma lay on her back, close enough so that her hip still cushioned Regina’s head. Her hand on Regina’s arm moved more slowly. Protectiveness made her pull Regina a little closer. She let her touch linger on Regina’s skin.  Her eyes scanned the darkness and she felt the grief of not knowing where Taz was. But contact with the queen, despite the act being driven by survival, cradled her spirit. It renewed her hope and determination. She breathed a little easier, a little more certain of herself. The need to take care of Regina raced through her. She didn’t understand the strength of it. Because Regina was injured? Because of her promise? Something else?

 

The magical connection they shared was one-sided, surely. Emma still had every reason to believe that if Regina discovered it, she would use it against Emma. To manipulate her or bait her or trap her.

 

After they got out of the cave, she would lose this, maybe even have to destroy it. These moments might be all she ever had.

 

#####################

 

“Emma, wake up.”

 

Emma shot up and patted the ground all around her, searching for Taz.

 

Regina stayed close, but they were no longer touching. She squeezed Emma’s arm and pointed. “Look.”

 

She stared, eyes glowing as a smile lifted the edges of her mouth.

 

To the left of them, the river dead-ended into a cove of clear, shallow water. At the center was an island of rock. From it crystal pillars—one blue, one gold, one green—reached upwards toward the small opening in the ceiling. The light shining through them cast fingers of color against the water and cave walls. So much darkness in these caves and now this show of iridescence spreading itself in shafts onto stone and rippling in the river. Lavender plants bobbed on the surface of the water. Other vegetation, ferns and thin, delicates vines spread over the walls.

 

“Look,” Regina prompted again, glancing at Emma as if she expected Emma to...do something. Emma couldn’t figure out what. She observed what she thought Regina did: pretty lights and Illumination.

 

She stood up and searched for Taz, seeing him gleaming in the clear water near the shore. She bent and lifted him up, shaking water from him. “Sorry, pal.” She propped him up against the cave wall. “You okay?”

 

Nothing. In her head, deep silence.

 

She rubbed her brow. “I should take a look around.”

 

“Emma,” Regina said, quietly. Disbelief shone from her eyes, a tiny crease marred her forehead.  “Can you really not appreciate that?” She motioned to cove. “We’ve been living from horror to horror. And today we have food, and then there’s...I’ve never seen anything like it.”

 

Emma licked her dry lips; she needed to drink more. She avoided the queen’s eyes. “I’m just trying to be…”

 

“Logical,” Regina said. “Yes, of course.”

 

Taz in hand, Emma made her way closer. She waded towards the purple plants, only to discover they were apple-sized fruit. She touched one, tracing the fuzz on its skin, then plucked it. Each one grew on a stem. There were at least forty or fifty, but as she studied them more, she realized they weren’t growing randomly. She swam for the island to get a better vantage point. They were organized, in rows. Like crops in a field.

 

“I found—I think it’s fruit,” she said, showing it to Regina.

 

“Wait, don’t eat that, we don’t know if—“

 

The warning came too late, as Emma took a large bite. Sweetness filled her mouth and juices dripped down her chin.

 

“Sorry,” Emma said, chewing.

 

It reminded her of wine. A giant grape? No, the skin was crunchy. “These were planted. Like a farm. I don’t think the light here is an accident either.”

 

She gathered as many fruit as she could carry and brought them to Regina. “Try it.” Emma pushed one at her.

 

Regina weighed it in her hand, uncertain. She chanced a small bite. “Oh god,” she groaned as the sugary juice touched her tongue.

 

“Right?”

 

Regina took another large bite, then held up her other hand. “Same rule of not eating too fast. We should see how our bodies react.” But she ignored her own advice, teeth tearing at a giant section of the fruit. “I think I’ve heard of this. The stories said that Qualsara made a wine craved by the whole world.” Her bright eyes caught Emma’s.“We’ve stumbled onto legends.”

 

She sounded the way people did when they prayed, which confused Emma. Emma nodded, acknowledging it, but didn’t give it more than a moment’s consideration. She glanced down the shoreline beyond Regina. It curved after a bit and she couldn’t see beyond that point. She took one of the fruits and motioned up ahead. “I’m going to look up there.”

 

Regina sighed, slow and exaggerated. She massaged one of her temples. “Wait, I need to make you aware of something, a situation.”

 

“Situation?”

 

She cleared her throat.“Yes. Before the spider cave, I could at least sense my magic; it was constrained, but it was there. But now there’s nothing. I can’t sense it at all.”

 

“Like—it’s gone?”

 

“A blue light hit us, do you remember? It could have been something that dispels or silences magic. I have similar wards in my castle. Inside the area of the ward or trap, magic is cancelled out.”

 

Emma considered Taz. “But just in that area? So, after we leave…”

 

“In theory, once we travel out of range, magic should return. Or at least not be completely gone. I am not sure why it was dampened before. I cannot imagine that it’s a coincidence.”

 

“That would be good.” Emma nodded. “Taz—Taz would like this fruit. We should take enough so that he can try it.”

 

Regina’s gaze became conflicted. “How can you...you’re so unemotional. But you keep doing all these things. You’re—you’re kind.”

 

“I’m not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment.”

 

Probably due to pure fatigue, Regina’s voice and her full lips pouted while her eyes pierced Emma. “It’s confusing and surprising and I dislike being surprised.”

 

“You know what surprises me about you? Sometimes I think I get you. Your pride, and how brave you can be. How independent you are. Also, you’re a snappy dresser.”

 

“Stop being kind,” Regina ordered, sounding frustrated.

 

Emma leaned Taz’s blade on her shoulder. “But here’s what confuses _me._ You have a helluva lot of strength, but it’s like you think you are out of choices.” She took a few steps back, headed toward the shore they couldn’t see from here. “And if anyone else in this kingdom told you that you had to stay cooped up in that castle because you had no choice, I think you’d fireball their ass.”

 

She turned on her heel and strolled away.

  


############

 

The pain now reminded Regina of the searing throbbing she felt after she had first awoken in this horrible place. Her frayed emotional and mental condition surely led to her confession to the savior about the magic. She took a small bite into the purple skin, wondering if it might even contain alcohol or other inhibitors.

 

Her promises meant nothing. Although, she had promised on Henry. If any promise had meaning, perhaps it was that one.

 

Emma couldn’t appreciate this place.

 

Emma who thought she was strong and brave. She used similar words to those of her mother, but Regina’s rage didn’t—couldn’t—cast them aside.

 

Emma who yearned to be a hero and would die to keep a promise. The thought coiled close to the pain of Daniel’s loss inside her. Dreams built in your mind, perfect, gleaming towers. Almost all tumbled and fell to dust. None of them could be trusted. Emma would need to learn that one day.

 

Like she would come to understand that being a hero didn’t ensure victory. Especially against her. Only one fate had befallen every hero Regina had ever come across. Emma may have some—she searched for a word—charm. It didn’t change that Regina would do to her what she did to anyone who tried to take what was hers.

 

Heroes needed to be stopped. All of them. The false hopes and dependency they spawned, not to mention their self-righteous ideas about good and evil. There were always going to be those who didn’t bow down to “being good,” and “good” could not save the sick or restrain the fists of natural disasters, or halt the siege engines of war.

 

Emma who held her, hands massaging her arms, trying to ease her discomfort from the cold. In the morning, Regina had wanted to stay there, more at peace than she had been since they’d come to this place. Perhaps even before that. She didn’t remember the last time someone had held her, touched her, or sought to do so. She had grown unaccustomed to contact.

 

Of course, any enjoyment she took from it was pathetic, given who they were to one another.

 

She had determinedly risen and pulled away before the savior woke. She refused to need anything from anyone.

 

She was yanked from her thoughts by loud tapping movements coming toward her. She jerked her head up and tensed.  Her weary brain told her it was only rapid footfalls and sure enough, Emma appeared around the bend, striding toward her.

 

“I found a dock. Well, more importantly, a boat.” No emotion, of course, was in her voice. Just assessment.

 

“A boat?”

 

“Yeah. I think I can get it up this way…It’s weird though, it’s metal. And it’s partly submerged in water. I went inside and there’s all these buttons...”  Emma trailed off, perhaps out of words that might explain it satisfactorily.

 

Each word floated inside her, giddiness tickling her brain. “But, there’s a boat? And we have food? And you didn’t see anything horrible? N-no monsters? No sign of them?”

 

“Right.”

 

She closed her eyes and laughter tumbled from her. She felt Emma bend down beside her, watching her with a wrinkled brow, trying to understand her reaction. Which only made her mirth wind tighter then release in a way she couldn’t control. She laughed till tears sparked in her eyes. “There’s no monsters or spiders or…Flos. Just a boat that makes no sense.” She reached out and grabbed the savior’s arm to try and regain herself. Her fingers touched bare skin through a tear in Emma’s gown.

 

Emma’s body froze. Her eyes grew wide.

 

“Emma?” Regina called. Emma’s lips quirked up, a smile rising in her eyes. Just for a second and then she jerked back and up.

 

“I—” She held her head in her hands a moment and breathed deep. “My head is—I’m a little nauseous. I’m going to see if I can make the boat work, okay?” One of her hands pressed deep in her blonde hair as she half-stumbled and half-ran from Regina.

 

Regina was someone who kept her secrets close, her own and those she learned about others. She knew running and she certainly recognized hiding. Emma had just done both.

 

But most of all, Regina knew the subtle signs of an instigated emotion.

 

 


	13. Of Floating and Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday Everybody!   
> I am totally overwhelmed by the feedback and support given to the last chapter. You all always have my back, but you threw it into high gear last week. These next few chapters will be very important for SQ. Please they are going to give me a creativity workout. My imagination is going to be so buff.
> 
> Anyway, thank you. 
> 
> The flight today will especially smooth. Almost as if we weren’t on a plane at all, but instead on some other mode of transportation...
> 
> This is your captain speaking.
> 
> Update on 6/7 - Running late gang, will post tomorrow (Friday).

 

 _Once, the queen gave me a choice: eat an apple and be trapped in sleep, constantly dreaming of my regrets or your father’s death. I bit into the apple almost instantly. In that dark place, I saw every time I walked away from Charming instead of staying with him and I saw myself telling Cora the secret Regina had entrusted to me. If only I could have kept what she told me to myself, so much would be different._ _Cora manipulated me. She spoke to me of loss and mothers and daughters. I didn’t understand how the heart, despite good intentions, could be twisted into betraying secrets. I didn’t know how powerful secrets were._

_\- Snow White Gealban, letter to her daughter_

 

 

Emma carried Regina to the dock over her shoulder.

 

“Isn’t your arm better yet?” Regina asked in half-hearted protest. Her lessons on what was proper for a lady were extensive and occasionally peeked out. Her mother and her tutors would have surely been horrified by the indignity of it all.

 

“It’s better but now it sort of hurts everywhere. Since the battle with Flo 2.”

 

Regina didn’t complain further. Her legs swayed as Emma moved and the sensation was that of her leg being speared over and over. She focused on managing the pain, her eyes closed until Emma stepped up and her movements thudded against wood.

 

“There,” Emma said, and placed Regina on her feet. Regina automatically leaned into Emma’s side. Emma’s arm settled around her back just under her arms. They had both grown accustomed to Emma providing support when Regina stood.

 

“That’s the weird boat,” Emma said.

 

The boat sat low, with more of it submerged than above the water; longer and slightly wider than a banquet table in her main hall, if each end sat three instead of two. The metal hull was perfectly smooth silver with darker bronze-colored bolts set every two feet. The tiny, almost delicate, size of them surprised her; ten of them in each row, running from top to bottom in an even line.

 

The bow was constructed of glass, the top, bottom and sides curved to a point like a fish head. It rose just above the deck, but most of it curved down beneath the waterline. She could see four chairs within; perhaps, she thought, where the ship could be steered?

 

Regina could make out an opening in the center of the ship with steps leading below. Behind it were a few feet of open deck and then a brass wheel that reminded her of a carriage wheel but thicker and made of metal. Something that looked like the balancing beam of a scale was attached to one of the spokes. Around it, several more brass pieces—round and thick as birch saplings—jutted up from the deck. One metal “trunk,” wider and taller than the others, thrust up from the very back of the ship.

 

Forgetting about her leg, Regina started to step towards it, eager to investigate it further.

 

“Whoa there,” Emma said softly, lightly restraining her.

 

“I see no oars and no sail. You said there were switches and button inside?”

 

“Lots.”

 

“Can you take me onboard?” Regina sounded young and breathless. Not at all the impervious queen she tried to be above ground.

 

She remembered the first time she had seen her mother cast a spell. She must have been very little but she could remember how her heart raced and her head felt fizzy. The world became bigger, but not in a scary way. It beckoned to her. Everything became a giant playground where anything could happen. Flying or rainbows or monsters or...heroes.

 

“Come on, Majesty, your carriage awaits,” Emma said and swooped her up. She took a large step unto the boat, bracing herself on bare feet to keep her balance. “Quick tour. The front.” Emma said and twisted her body so Regina could see through the glass. She waited briefly, letting Regina look, then turned. “The back.”

 

“This tour leaves much to be desired,” she said, a light barb. Quickly humor gave way to reverence as she studied the machinery on the deck. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said, studying the machinery on the deck.

 

“Yeah, strange, right?” Emma asked as if it was minor curiosity instead of an awe-inducing bending of everything that was supposed to be possible. There were times Regina wanted to smack her and hopefully find a shred of emotion. She knew Emma could be….more. At least, sometimes.

 

Emma carried her below. At the bottom of the stairs, a metal oven waited. It was scorched with dark marks from fire; the only part of the ship Regina had seen so far that didn’t sparkle as if brand new.

 

From the front of the ship, sunlight streamed through the glass, casting shadows towards them down a short, narrow hallway. There was room to squeeze past the oven to the back of the boat, but only if you turned sideways and pushed yourself through. She and Emma could just barely stand side by side in front of the oven.

 

“There’s this big red button here,” Emma said, gesturing to the hood above the oven.

 

“Maybe that...powers it?” Regina guessed.

 

Emma ducked her head down and Regina leaned on her as they moved to the bow. At the very front of the ship, a strip of metal allowed passage over the glass, and a half-wall housed a row of instruments and the ship’s wheel. Four large leather chairs provided seating for passengers, two of them directly before the panel. The view of the clear aqua water through the panes of glass was primarily unhindered, underwater as well as over it. Not that there was anything in the water to see, but still.

 

Emma helped Regina sit. Amply padded, the chair cradled her body and she sank into the unexpected comfort.

 

“Maybe when this is over, I will send some of my men down to disassemble this and bring it to the castle for study,” Regina said. “We seem to have lost knowledge—extraordinary knowledge—that may benefit all.”

 

Emma’s mouth twisted as her fingers ran over the interior of the boat here and there. “Assuming this thing keeps afloat. I don’t get how it isn’t sinking. Be right back, okay?” Emma strode back towards the stairs and climbed up. After a few moments, Regina saw her on the dock, throwing rocks into the water in front of the boat as hard as she could.

 

“What are you doing?” Regina called out to her.

 

Emma faced her. “I was just making sure there’s really nothing nearby.”

 

An inexplicable fondness swelled in Regina that she immediately buried.

 

“Come back inside,” she commanded. “We should try and take the boat back for the Brylu meat and the pickaxe.”

 

It took trial and error but eventually they created a fire in the oven. Emma investigated the sudden chugging sound above them and reported that the wheel on the deck had started to spin, the balance beam over it moving up and down. The metal post at the back puffed smoke.

 

Together they tested how the controls in the bow worked. There was a switch that could be in one of three positions that seemed to control the power coming from the machines on the deck, as well as the output of smoke. Regina tested a button that made the boat float higher in the water. They figured out that another switch made them go forward. But how to go backwards eluded them, even after trying everything they could think of.

 

The river wasn’t wide enough for them to fully turn around. Which meant giving up on taking the ship upriver to get fruit and Brylu meat. Instead Emma hiked back and forth a few times. She filled the two spare chairs with fruit and left the Brylu tentacle she had dragged over on the deck.

 

“You wanna do the honors?” Emma asked, motioning to the switch that would start them off. Regina grinned, dropped her head in a small bow and pushed the switch forward.

  


#####################

 

As they followed the river, they came upon the remains of a mesh wire barrier. At one time it must have blocked the entire tunnel, extending from wall to wall and from the ceiling to deep in the water. There were hinges left behind, so it likely had a gate. Something powerful had struck it and left a gaping hole with bent wire at the edges. Beyond it, the river began to slope down.

 

Regina sat in the bow with Emma, both of their expressions grim.

 

“Do we want to talk about what might have burst through that metal gate thing?”

 

“No,” Regina said, the pickaxe held in front of her, hands gripping it tightly. “We do not.”

 

“Well,” Emma said calmly. “Look, we can’t go back. Literally. I still have no idea how to. And even if we could, I’m not sure how well this thing will battle back upriver.”

 

Regina didn’t react to the words at all. She didn’t know how to answer.

 

“This could all be leading to an exit. I’ve heard some of the lakes in the Whitranni lands feed underground rivers.”

 

Regina nodded, though her worried expression didn’t change. “And there may be shorelines with tunnels up ahead.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“I know we’re okay,” Regina said quietly. “The boat gives us some degree of safety and warmth. I just...was hoping we wouldn’t be going further down.” She sighed. “And my powers have yet to make a reappearance.”

 

“But they will. If you’re right about the area of effect, eventually...everything will come back. Taz too.” Emma had leaned him against her leg since both she and Regina were below. “Just need to keep going.”

 

“You sound like your mother.”

 

“Um, thank you?’

 

Regina couldn’t prevent a tiny smile. “Not a compliment.”

 

They took turns steering. They discovered that the interior could be stifling, so they left the hatch open and took turns sitting above. It meant each of them spending quite a bit of time by themselves.

 

Regina should be used to being alone. In her castle, her books and the magic items she had collected kept her company. Or kept her from noticing her solitude. Now, only the wheezing of moving metal and the splashing of the boat cutting through the water were the only distractions. Above the only view was of the rounded ceiling and occasional sparse shoreline.

 

They travelled that way for hours.

 

Eventually, Regina caught sight of a crack in the ceiling above. She could make out the night sky and stars. “Emma,” she yelled down, her voice playing out over and over in echoes. Emma called back to her but she couldn’t make out the words.

 

The boat came to a stop and Emma’s head popped up from the hatch. “Hey,” she said, and waited expectantly.

 

“What if we both took a break at the same time for a bit?”

 

“Well, um...why?”

 

She debated throwing her pickaxe at Emma. She didn’t want to spell out the true reason, couldn’t bear to do that. “I—the vibration of the engines. I could use a break from them.”

 

Emma accepted that and descended to power the ship down fully before remerging. She handed Regina fruit and took a bite of her own piece. She sat and balanced Taz on her knees.

 

They kept as close to the hatch as they could. For one thing, it provided heat. For another, it offered a faint light source.

 

“You know, I wonder if we should name this thing,” Emma said.

 

“Next you’ll want me to call you captain.”

 

“Well we’re both driving so...I guess we’re both captains?”

 

“I think I shall keep my title of queen, thank you.”

 

“Then yeah, I’m definitely the captain.”

 

“Very well, Captain, what should we call our boat?”

 

 _Our boat_ , the words pinged a warning in Regina’s mind. She would need to kill Emma one day. Or curse her as she had her parents. But she had always been able to compartmentalize. Here underground was not the real world; it was merely something to be survived. Her kingdom was reality and the only thing that mattered.

 

And Henry. Always Henry.

 

“How about we name the boat after your kid?” Emma said, as if somehow reading her mind.

 

When Emma made suggestions like that, irritatingly treating her with thoughtfulness as no one ever had, her resolve slipped. “Do you not wish to name it after one of your annoying parents?”

 

Emma tried to comb back the hair falling in her eyes and shrugged. “We could just call it ‘Nameless Really Weird Boat That Will Probably Sink’.”

 

The joke dissolved some of Regina’s more cryptic and strategic thoughts. She needed to keep both worlds in mind, but it was inescapable that for now, they were in the caverns. “Could we...Henry Senior?”

 

“Who’s that?”

 

“My father,” Regina said, a flickering memory of his statue assailing her her mind. “He always tried to take care of me.” It wasn’t entirely honest. There was so many times he hadn’t...couldn’t...wouldn’t. She amended the words. “In his own way. Perhaps It would be a dependable name. Maybe a good omen.”

 

“In his own way?”

 

“He...tried.”

 

Emma, graciously, didn’t press. “You believe in omens?”

 

Regina raised a brow. “I think we could use some good luck, don’t you? I know boats usually have more imaginative names. Maybe...Father’s Wish.”

 

He had wanted her to be happy, she remembered. He told her that over and over.

 

“Father’s Wish.” Emma patted the boat. “You want to play the questions game?” Regina pulled a face and Emma raised her hands in surrender. “Just an idea.”

 

“If you weren’t the savior, would you have become a farmer, do you think? I cannot imagine that life for you, you constrained to a farm.”

 

“I’ve never thought…” Emma dropped her eyes and her expression became thoughtful. “All my life, it was all about me being Snow White Gealban’s daughter and the prophecy.”

 

She didn’t sound sad, just reflective. It frustrated Regina. She _should_ be sad, or at least angry. Emma’s whole life had never been her own. Just as Regina’s hadn’t been for so many years. She had done so much to be free, darkened herself and her heart.

 

“The idea of just wandering around randomly helping people who need it appeals to me,” Emma said.

 

Regina could see that. Emma chasing that aspiration of being a hero. Damn her.

 

“What about you?” Emma asked. “If, you know, you weren’t queen?”

 

Lost dreams were buried so deeply inside her that she would have to tear herself apart to speak them. So many explanations she didn’t think she could tell anyone. Not her father, who never saved her from her mother. Not Sidney, who would hold any part of her in any way he could and also hungered for her power.

 

Never show anyone vulnerabilities, drive any weaknesses from yourself or hide them; so was the wisdom of Cora Mills, she thought bitterly.

 

Yet her mother had been right.

 

Still, from above them the stars twinkled. Her belly was full and her body relished the constant flow of heat from inside the boat. For once, she felt the sensation of floating in sleepiness instead of drowning in exhaustion. Emma’s green eyes were attentive, sometimes curious or confused, but interested.

 

“I didn’t used to want to be queen. I wanted…”  Her words faltered as she thought of Daniel, of stupid, girlish dreams of true love. That younger her with a pure heart who believed in forever and died when Daniel did. “I—I don’t know.”

 

She didn’t want to leave it there, didn’t want to maintain a stoic silence or feed Emma facts that furthered her agenda. She didn’t want to be the queen. Not now.

 

Regina skimmed the nails of one hand over the fingertips of the other, as if she needed to be on the edge of pain to make admissions, now that their lives weren’t immediately in danger. “But maybe, if things were different, I would explore places like this. Old, mysterious, lost. We need to remember things—symbols that bind people, art that shows who we could be, creations that astound. I would want to...share that. I would collect knowledge on magic, too. I don’t know what I’d do with it...something...something good.” She shook her head. “But we are who we are.”

 

Emma stretched out, lying on her side, facing her.

 

Regina had been reclining but now lay back as well. “I tried to give the people a school. They hate me so much they set fire to it.”

 

“But...okay, let’s say they learn to read and write. How does that make their lives better? The sons of farmers still become farmers. Everyone’s daughters still become bargaining chips.”

 

Regina leveled a stare at her. She loathed justifying herself. “Books open the mind. They fire the imagination. They broaden perspectives.”

 

Emma rubbed the back of her neck and her eyebrows drew closer, a line forming between them. “I guess they don’t do that for me.”

 

“Is that because of whatever affliction you suffer from?”

 

Emma started to answer but pressed her lips together, stared, and scooted away. Regina knew she should press the issue. It could give her an important advantage; one that might make the difference when they left this place.

 

Yet this was their first night of true peace and relative comfort. She didn’t want to push or manipulate right now.

 

Not the queen, she told herself again, not now.

 

She also worried Emma might lie and deny it. She didn’t want that either.

 

“It’s okay,” Regina said. “Not tonight.” Emma drew in a slow breath, nodded and inched back her way. “Anyway, I hadn’t hired staff for the school. For some reason”—her voice became lighter—“my call for scholars and master craftsman to come to the castle didn’t get an enthusiastic response.”

 

She had never been able to joke about that time in her life before. It took away some of the sting of those memories. “WIll you tell me more about that farm of yours?”

 

“Really?”

 

“Well, I have never actually been in a farmhouse before. Or planted crops or milked a cow or whatever it is farmers do. Educate me.”

 

“Yes, Your Majesty,”

 

“Thank you , Captain.”

 

####################

 

They talked for a long time and fell asleep without consciously ending the conversation. Emma asked Regina about life in the palace. Regina wondered if Emma was better with a bow or a sword, given who her mother was.

 

“I am so much better with a sword,” Emma said. “And Taz and I are a good team.”

 

“I did notice.”

 

“Also? Your guards could use some training.”

 

“Noticed that too, thank you.” She glanced at Taz. “Will you tell me about meeting him?”

 

Emma did.

 

Emma woke first and found herself studying the queen’s relaxed features in the half-light of the still-burning oven below. She wondered if Regina was in pain now. She didn’t want her to be.

 

She sat cross-legged and placed Taz in front of her. She wondered what her life might have been like if she had known Regina when she was young, if maybe she’d been one of the children Granny wound up adopting.

 

Illogical, her mind countered. In that scenario Regina wouldn’t be queen and Emma might have a heart that worked.

 

Everything would be different.

 

Maybe it was anyway, since they had fallen down here.

 

If Emma thought a moment, she could imagine Regina’s smile or the wonder that filled her eyes with light when daylight broke in the cove.

 

She wanted to touch her. She always did now. She wanted the color instead of the drabness of existing without her heart. She craved the rush of feelings that ran over her and the hope that surged.

 

But the queen—Regina—knew...a lot, so it seemed. She was so fucking smart.

 

She couldn’t help admire it but it was dangerous.

 

Last night Regina let her off the hook, but Emma doubted she would for long. She had become a decent actress, at least when it came to hiding what was wrong with her. Down here, she hadn’t had the energy to pretend.

 

Surely Regina would see through it now if Emma tried to play the part of the savior she usually did. Letting Regina discover the full truth would give the queen power over her. She couldn’t do that. But, she wondered what Regina would say, what she might know, how many questions of Emma’s—ones she’d had all of her life—Regina could answer.

 

She didn’t know how to escape Regina’s perceptiveness.

 

She went below, spiked Brylu meat on a poker and balanced it in the oven.

 

Well, maybe they would have a decent breakfast.

 

Her hand crept to the thin belt around her waist. Yesterday she had rediscovered the hidden compartment in it. And the potion.

 

How the fuck it was still intact she didn’t know.

 

Part of her didn’t want it to be. It added complexities. It gave her a choice she wasn’t sure she wanted.

 

Not anymore.

 

#######################

 

Regina couldn’t sleep.

 

For a time, she watched the savior’s serene expression and listened to her even breathing.

 

_She who was born of stone heart will lay down her head. She who darkened her heart will be confronted by light._

 

She remembered now that when they found Charming, his hands were lifted up, as if handing something fragile to one of his allies.

 

Something?

 

Someone?

 

She dug into her memories, searching for what she could remember of how she had found Charming. His statue was locked in her vault, but she had never bothered to manipulate his posture. She had not looked upon him in years. Snow was the object of her animosity; he was just her bothersome lapdog.

 

Magic started in the heart or the soul. She imagined the curse hitting him and his body starting to turn to crystal. Him desperately handing the baby he held to a friend. Perhaps it started to creep its way over her, only to be stopped by whatever spell Snow cast. Rumplestiltskin had never admitted it, but she had always suspected he had helped them protect the baby.

 

Why? Why had he helped them? What did it gain him. He always acted for his own gain.

 

She heard steps on the stairs and started to turn towards the sound. Emma’s quick movements and how they stopped right behind her made her pause. Emma hunched over her, trying to see her face. Instinctively Regina snapped her eyes closed, curious.

 

“This is so fucking stupid,” Emma muttered. “We’re safe though, shouldn’t I...just this one last time?”

 

The light slide of fingertips brushed Regina’s hand.

 

Regina couldn’t stop her hand from twitching but held herself very still afterwards. Emma’s hand tightened on hers, but slowly relaxed.

 

“Hey Taz,” Emma said. “You okay?” She sounded so warm. “Regina says that...well, you probably know.” Behind her, Emma sat without breaking contact. “We have food. We have this fucking insane boat. It—you’d probably love it.”

 

There. In Emma’s voice, the joy of the indescribable and the miraculous. “I just needed to...one more time. I don’t know how long we have down here. We could get out tomorrow and then...I don’t know if it will ever happen again.”

 

Regina had never heard anyone sound so bare and unguarded. Longing and fear running together, free and unchecked. She fought an inner glee. Was the savior about to spill all her secrets without Regina expelling any effort at all? A tiny voice inside her wondered if she should speak, asking laughably if that might be the right thing to do. Such stupid impulses would not help her keep her kingdom. No, she would hold her tongue.

 

“Hey, I promise I’m going to get us out of here soon. And then, I’ll take you to get the best ale in the entire kingdom. We’ll get legendarily drunk.” There was a pause and then Emma laughed, a small stirring of sound. A ripple of warmth flowed down Regina’s body. She had to summon all her self control not to move. “For... days.”

 

“I’m...trying to do right by the queen. It sounds crazy when I say it out loud.”

 

Regina barely breathed, wanting every word the savior would offer in confession. Like a mosquito, the thought that she couldn’t remember the last time someone had held her hand tried to distract her. She swatted the unworthy thought away.

 

“Hey, I found the potion Rumplestiltskin gave me. I had forgotten about it. How it survived, I have no idea.” She gave a rueful chuckle. “Magic, I guess? Or destiny? Kind of hope it’s not the fucking ‘chosen one’ bullshit. I...don’t want her to die. So, maybe you were right. Maybe there’s a reason for..." Both of Emma’s hands cupped her own, drawing it closer.

 

Regina didn’t resist. She kept her face smooth and relaxed. She replayed the moments she had seen emotions on Emma’s face: seizing Emma’s hand during the banquet, her hands around Emma’s neck, her hand grabbing the savior’s arm.

 

“Regina, she’s... I don’t have the right words.” Emma sighed. “What if I can’t hurt her? I know my parents need me but what if..."

 

Regina would have laughed, uproarious and loud, if she could. She had the savior hesitating and questioning herself. She had yet to actually try her wiles and she was halfway to winning.

 

Frustration grew in Emma’s voice and she spoke more quickly. “There’s so many reasons. The thing, yeah. And I know all the stories about how she can’t be trusted. I know. But there’s no way she’s been able to lie to me all the time down here. Not with her leg and the starvation and the monsters."

 

All at once the savior released her

 

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She whispered and backed away.

 

She heard Emma move towards the stairs and down below.

 

Her eyes popped open and a lazy, large grin spread over her mouth. She would keep silent, of course, not revealing to the savior all she knew.

 

But then, if she needed to and when the time was right…

 

She didn’t understand why she felt tears touch her eyes. She wiped them away furiously. She would do what she had to.

 

For her kingdom.

 

For Henry.


	14. Of Miraculous Graveyards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thur - er, Friday everyone.
> 
> First, I continue to be blown away by your support. The comments and the kudos are this constant stream of encouragement to my muse. Many of you know my aspirations when it comes to writing and you help me believe it is possible.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Update 6/15 - Hey all! So, I am noticing a trend which is that GoH chapters are more time-consuming in terms of writing/editing than modern work. When I started this, I was a few chapters ahead and now, not so much. I loathe feeling late for anything and I have felt terrible that lately, I'm struggling to post weekly. These next few chapters, especially, I would rather get them right than worry about being "on time". Beyond that, SQSN is rapidly approaching a deadline and I was going to need to take a hiatus anyway. Soooo here's how I would like to proceed.
> 
> 1\. I am not going to post weekly. I hate this but I feel like it's necessary for stress/creativity but I will post frequently. This means at least monthly.   
> 2\. I have this whole story outlined so I will NOT abandon it. I am determined to finish. Just might take longer than I thought.  
> 3\. Using this approach, I can also work more on LH which I really want to finish rewriting.  
> 4\. Please subscribe or follow me on Twitter or use similar means to keep track of when I post. You all are essential. Seriously, writing consistently can be a bit of a slog. Especially when, as sometimes happen the first draft makes me go "ewwww". You all encourage me (and others) to push on through those feelings.   
> 5\. I feel good about this decision and consider it a positive step because the whole thing for me is to tell you all the best story I can. I think this will help me do that.   
> 6\. Also, can't wait till you see what I am doing fo SQSN.  
> 7\. mariacomet on Twitter, FYI.

**Garden of Heroes - Of Miraculous Graveyards**

 

_It is said Murgein tried again and again, never having lost before, to conquer the ingenuity and determination of the Qualsara. They demolished tunnels to keep her from reaching them. They invented cannons that could send volley after volley of shot by turning a hand crank and applying fire to a hole just above each barrel. They carried spears and crossbows that fired at high rates of speed and flew twice the distance of any weapon known. Murgein would not be deterred. She came with her twisted army. The Qualsara fended her off for close to two years before she destroyed them._

 

_It should be noted that, of the Qualsara’s supposed almost-inhuman genius and craftsmanship, we have never found a trace._

_Stories of the Qualsara_

 

Thoughts of her father pummelled Regina as she took her shift driving. She stroked her fingertips against her forehead, trying to quell the memories and the faint disorientation that came from the absence of her magic.

 

She remembered the first day she wore the Crystal Crown; how it strained her neck with unfamiliar weight in a way it hadn’t since. Maleficent had given her the ultimate solution to the problem of Snow White, but as Regina strode into the chambers adjacent to her bedroom and faced her father, a tiny jagged crack marred her resolve.

 

She told him the price of activating the crown. She loathed the conflict within herself, the weakness that threatened to strangle who she could become. Magic always came with a price. The crown demanded the imprisonment of the one she loved the most. Steep, yes, but fair, given the power it offered her.

 

 _“They already think I am nothing,”_ she said.

 

They still did. The punishment for not loving her, those simpletons in her kingdom who did not want her, was to make them fear her and force them to obey her.

 

Her father tried to sway her, promising she could have love again. She knew the truth—no one would love the evil queen. He argued that she could let go and find redemption; as if it would be so simple to walk away and forget everything she wanted.

 

He embraced her, and she chose. The difference between the strong and the weak was the lengths one was willing to go. She made him her sacrifice.

 

If she examined the book of her life, so many pages would begin with her certainty that she should be queen and all she had done to fulfill that truth. So much of the writing in her memory of who she was before Daniel had grown faded and indecipherable over time.

 

Now, even with Snow gone, she was no closer to happiness than she had been the day Daniel died. Yet, she was queen. Despite all of them, she was not nothing.

 

Regina had hated the savior since the early days of the prophecy, before she was even born. With every whisper that “the savior will save the people from the evil queen,” that infection inside of her spread. But in these caverns, the savior had become Emma and Emma had saved her life.

 

It wasn’t the single-minded queen who called Emma “Captain” or threw rocks at the Brylu. Since their truce, she had been forced to be someone unfamiliar. She could not be royalty in these caverns. There was no throne, no magic, no servants, and no kingdom that loathed and feared her in equal measure. They were slowly travelling back toward that world, but they had not reached it. Yet now, with what she knew, it was time for her to be the queen again, wasn’t it?

 

Last night, Emma admitted hesitation at the thought of hurting her. Regina could weave a connection between them so convincing that the savior could never take an action against her. She, of course, would have no such qualms when the time came.

 

She untied the crown from her waist and rested it in her lap. “Emma,” she called. “Would you bring me my dagger?”

 

When Emma arrived in the cabin, Regina thanked her with a smile. She cut the sleeves off of her ballgown, tossing the now-excess fabric on the seat behind her. “This may help with the heat,” she said, innocently. “Do you want me to cut yours as well?”

 

“I’m good,” Emma replied quickly, eyes bouncing from surface to surface in the hull and her fingers tight around the back of a chair

 

Regina stuck the point of the knife in the fabric just below her knee and began to rip it.

 

This time Emma’s eyes followed the revealed skin before she turned her back. She cleared her throat. “Need anything else? I’m going go check the coal and head back upstairs.”

 

“I’m fine, thank you. Emma,” Regina replied sweetly.

 

Regina was tempted to thrust her hand into her chest and hold up her heart, to stare upon it as she had so often since the curse. But why when she knew what she would find?

 

################

 

There were a series of “accidental” meetings and touches throughout the day. The first two times Emma froze and took in a deep heaving breath then jerked back. The third time, Emma dodged just out of reach with surprising skill. After that, much to Regina’s frustration, Emma gave her as wide a berth as possible.

 

A feeling of closeness and intimacy would need to be pursued in other ways.

 

Regina was revising her tactics when the boat slowed then stopped. Emma called from below that she had seen something on the wall and wanted to go ashore.

 

The tunnel was wider here, the shoreline, for once, pushed back from the water thirty or forty feet. It continued downriver for as far as Regina could see.

 

What had caught Emma’s attention was a shadow on the ground; a thin pole sprouting from the wall. Regina strained her eyes and thought she spotted another not far from the first. .

 

Taz in hand, Emma jumped to the closest point between the boat and the rocky ground to go see what they were.

 

Regina pushed herself as close as she could to the edge of the deck. “What is it?”

 

“Hang on.” She heard the sound of Emma striking something, a whack of metal on metal then a clatter.

 

“What in the hell are you doing?”

 

“Investigating.”

 

Emma returned the same way she left and lay her spoils before Regina. The pole was attached to the base of an enclosure made of metal, the size and shape of a large ale stein. It even had a handle at its side. However, at the top of the handle was a small, round candle holder with a long, thin candle.

 

“The rod thingy is hollow.” Emma turned it so Regina could peer through the pole. The end of it was cracked, but rust and corrosion had done their damage long before Emma. “The end of it fit into a hole in the wall. I stuck my finger in it, seemed like went on a ways.”

 

Regina would have rolled her eyes but the object Emma found lured her imagination irresistibly. “An oil lantern, perhaps? But the base seems too small to hold very much oil. Perhaps if I can clean it up. I don’t recognize the metal.” She darted her eyes from the treasure in her hands to Emma. “I think I saw more of these. If they all have candles, it will be a good find.”

 

“I’ll take a look. I want to see if there’re tunnels or anything, too.”

 

Emma lit the candle in the oven below.

 

“Captain? I remind you that I still have need of you.” The words were easier to say than “Be careful.” There was a duality to Regina’s actions that was hard to compartmentalize. She did want Emma to be safe—for many reasons—but she also needed to build an artificial closeness with Emma.

 

Emma twirled her sword and saluted her, then headed into the dark.

 

Regina continued to study what she had found. A lantern, but the wick was metal and she could find no oil reservoir. A ludicrous thought occurred to her: if the pole was hollow and affixed into the wall, could oil have been funnelled to the lamp from one central place? She puzzled over it while using one of her abandoned sleeves to rub at the rust on the artifact.

 

She barely admitted to herself that the cove and the lantern could be evidence. She had read so many stories about the Qualsara. They had held a special fascination for her when she was a girl. She did not understand how anyone could dislike magic, but she wondered at tales of fantastic creations. The talent to do such things, in and of itself, had to be born of supernatural powers.

 

“Emma, look at this,” she said when Emma returned. She held up the lantern and showed the maker’s stamp she had found: a V made of two hammers, the heads of each serving as the ends.

 

Emma set down the armful of candles, tilted her head, and bent down to get a good look.

 

“Emma, I know this symbol.” Her voice brimmed with reverence. “I’ve seen it in histories of our kingdom when the Qualsara were mentioned. This is...it has to be hundreds of years old.” The exhilaration of discovery made laughter bubble from her.

 

“Right. Cool,” Emma said, more noting that she had heard Regina than reacting to what she’d said. Regina wished she could have access to her magic for just one moment so she could fling Emma into the water head-first.

 

Regina sighed, shoulders going limp. Emma wasn’t being brusque; she was being practical. As always. In all the world, of all the people to be with her, it was someone who had a “stone heart.”

 

“Hey, I found three caved-in tunnels. Does that seem weird to you?”

 

“Tunnels?” Regina asked, pushing both her excitement and irritation to the side.

 

“Yeah, but none of them were passable in any way. No sign of life or footfalls. I found more tools, bunch of pickaxes and hammers in pretty bad shape. I would have brought some of them, but I was concentrating on the candles. Do you want me to go get them? They’re back a ways.”

 

Regina set down the artifact with great care. She could appreciate it later—alone. “No, but perhaps this is as good a place as any to make camp.”

 

###############################

 

They agreed to eat Brylu meat for one more meal before tossing it out, fearing it might go bad and make them ill. They also started rationing the fruit to three a day. By Emma’s count, it would give them four more days of food.

 

“You know, royalty used to consider it a great act of valor to slay a Brylu,” Regina, using her dagger to saw at a piece of thick, rubbery meat. “That’s probably why they no longer exist.”

 

“Except Flo 1 and Flo 2.”

 

“Except for them.”

 

“It was my great-granddad and Lord Talien who started the kingdom, right? Back in the Brylu-killing days?”

 

“Shouldn’t someone in the rebellion have taken responsibility to teach you your history?’

 

“Well, they tried. I, um, I found all that stuff boring.”

 

Granny and Grumpy had tried to explain the importance of knowing where she came from. Emma absorbed the larger concepts but couldn’t force herself to be interested in the details. She learned more by doing.Taz agreed, which made him a terrible influence.

 

Regina shook her head at her. “I had some of the best tutors in the country. Even one or two from Zenvum. I suspect they would all have taken a switch to you.”

 

Emma could not imagine Regina allowing someone to punish her. “They really did that to you?”

 

“No, there never was a need. Pay attention, Emma. Your fifth-great-grandfather Horace Gealban,” she paused to count, “five times removed allied with Lord Talien. Together, their armies began to conquer the other fiefs. That was the very beginning of the Whitranni kingdom.”

 

“Arhona Emerlas told me once that my family had once done something unspeakable to hers? How long ago was that?”

 

“Lord Horace Gealban offered many fiefs a chance to join his alliance, including the Emerlas. In his zeal to create unity, he declared himself king and commanded that only one language would be spoken in his new world. He thought he was doing ‘good’,” her eyes lingered on Emma, teasing her with the word. “But the Emerlas have always passed their traditions down through oral history. It is a fundamental part of who they are, as is the sincere desire to connect one generation to the next. They withdrew from the new king’s alliance and closed their borders. Horace summoned all his allies and lay siege to their kingdom. He used fire and brutality. He thought he could conqueror them quickly. In the name of what he wanted, he did increasingly despicable things. They resisted him, but they couldn’t oppose him forever. He was too strong.”

 

Regina paused, her brows rose a fraction and the timbre of her voice deepened, a quiet vibration that reached for Emma. “I’m not boring you, am I, Emma?”

 

Emma became over-sensitive to conditions that hadn’t changed. The heat of the oven below expanded and retracted around her head. Her gown rubbed coarsely against her skin. The deck shrunk, and the amount of her personal space along with it.

 

Regina seemed different today, Emma couldn’t put her finger on why. Just—a spattering of moments like this one when she...watched Emma a little too long, satisfaction settling in her features.

 

Emma tried to keep things light. After all, she didn’t want the topic of her “affliction” to come up again. “You have an, um, engaging teaching style. Besides, I think there may be an implied ‘listen to me or I will kill you’. And maybe a test later?”

 

“Well, I would hate to not meet your expectation. Captain, you shall listen to me or I will kill you.” She leaned closer, the fabric of her ripped gown touching Emma’s arm. “Better?”

 

At the banquet, Regina had whispered in her ear and her body had thundered a response. She shook her head to clear it as her pulse jumped over and over.

 

Banter and teasing were part of of the mask Emma used to hide her lack of a heart. She knew how to joke, even though she didn’t experience humor. She made guesses on what to say, honed by experience, to promote the dashing image of a hero she thought the people needed. After awhile, she did it without planning it. But...today with Regina...she wasn’t sure she had the tools to know how to act.

 

Regina had whispered in her ear at the banquet and then, too, she had frozen in place. Her body straining for more of whatever spell she was casting while her mind floundered.

 

“Where was I?” Regina asked. “Oh yes, conquering. After a few years, the Emerlas surrendered, or so it seemed. The Arhona was supposed to surrender to him in person, but she was a particularly stubborn woman. Within a few days of the meeting, she and most of the population disappeared into the Alabaster Mountains without a word. In reprisal, your great-grandfather burned any historic building or text or artifact they had left behind.”

 

“So he was an asshole?”

 

Regina grew pensive. “He did great things. Terrible things too.” Time passed and the lines of her face softened. The tightly wound energy between them relaxed.“You’re so disconnected. From the past. From the present.” Regina glanced up, but fled from contact with Emma’s eyes. “You pulled back from the world as I did. The lords, the people, your friends...they needed you...yet you retired. At least until the banquet. It just doesn’t seem like you, Emma. What happened?”

 

The gentle words reached out to Emma, she could sense the touch of them, even if she remained unaffected. “Everybody wanted me for different things. Most of the nobles want more power. The people, I don’t know, it’s like they’re lying in bed and they’re waiting for someone to shake them before they wake up. Half of my friends hope to see my mother when they look at me.”

 

Regina flinched in surprise, as if it never occurred to her that adoration for the mother would press expectations onto the daughter.

 

“I didn’t have answers for any of them,” Emma continued, impassive.

 

“Yet you came to the tribute dinner to poison me.” She lifted her hands to stay Emma’s response. She continued to speak in that same caressing tone. “I’m not judging you. I know what it’s like to have a destiny. How tiring it can be to be faced with difficult choice after difficult choice. How sometimes you do what you have to instead of what you want to do.”

 

“I think some people have this voice inside them that tells them the right thing to do, but I don’t.” Emma unconsciously slid her hand over her heart, dropping it quickly when she realized she was thinking of her mother’s counsel to “use it or follow it” or one of the many ways she put things. “When I came to the banquet it was about breaking the crown. It was a potion. I really wasn’t trying to poison you.”

 

“Oh, Emma, that’s semantics. It was a death sentence either way.” She said it casually, with grim humor.

 

“What—what do you mean?”

 

Regina’s eyes narrowed, hardened for just a moment. “After I awoke down here, we argued about the crown, and you mentioned a man who helped you. His name was Rumplestiltskin, wasn’t it?” Regina asked it like she was certain of the answer. Her smile returned, colder now “Did you mean to tell me he convinced you that it would be as easy as getting me to drink some wine and then all would be restored? That there was no price?”

 

The naiveté of it, laid out in such a way, struck like lightning. “You said death?”

 

“The bond the crown and I have is powerful. I can destroy it, but its destruction means my own. You would have become a cold-blooded murderer.”

 

Emma sat back, bracing herself on her hands as if she might leap to her feet. “So if the crown is broken, which is the only way to save my parents, you’ll—you’ll die?”

 

Regina’s face held no emotion. It reminded Emma of herself, the way she must appear to others. “The prophecy isn’t vague about someone needing to die, Emma. ‘Through death will there be renewal in Ivory halls.’”

 

Hundreds of words spoken by her friends and Rumplestiltskin and written by her mother bounced in Emma’s mind. Her head ached as questions, reasons and variables picked up speed. Inside her the usual barren place with no emotions and no ability to connect to them lay untouched. Yet her stomach muscles clenched and her thoughts kept jumping uncontrollably.  She didn’t understand what was happening.  

 

She seized the remnants of their dinner from the deck, hoping movement would help.“Would you lie to me about this?” Her even voice did not match the agitation of her movements. “Say it just so that I won’t try and break the curse?”

 

For a few moments, as Regina had wielded truth like a weapon, the shroud of the evil queen hovered behind her. Now there was only the woman Emma had made a truce with, lip bowing in a frown as she watched her. “Emma, why don’t you sit?”

 

Emma rearranged the candles. She used her sleeve to quickly wipe Taz down. She tried to find more to do, but she couldn't squeeze in any extra thoughts of what that might be. She paced the deck once, then stopped and focused on the up and down motion of the piston connected to the wheel. The seesaw rhythm of it had order and as she continued to watch, her thoughts slowed and became more organized.

 

“Emma,” Regina called to her, louder. She seemed...worried. Granny worried about her, or Grumpy. Ruby sometimes. Emma breathed in deep, relieved as her head stopped hurting. She waited for everything in her mind to quiet. 

 

She returned to the space on the deck where she usually sat. She placed Taz across her knees as she sat cross-legged. “Sorry, it’s not every day I fuck up this badly.” It was the best explanation for her reaction that she had.

 

“You should have been more aware, yes. However, I understand how that imp twists things, especially when you’re feeling very lost and unsure of what to do.”

 

Emma rubbed her throat as if a bitter pill was lodged there. “I thought I’d found a way to beat the prophecy.”

 

Regina didn’t move at first and only the way her head lowered a fraction indicated that she’d heard. “You can’t win against magic that way. You pay the price or you don’t. There’s no cheating.”

 

“But, none of it makes sense. Heroes sacrifice. That’s part of things. But they don’t make other people do it for them. That’s not how it’s supposed to work."

 

Regina shook free of where her thoughts had taken her. “You and your desire to be a hero.” She said it like it was some old joke between them. She stretched out her hand, placing it near Emma’s knee without touching it. “Heroes sacrifice, but they also kill the monster.”

 

“You aren’t —” The protest melted from her tongue. Regina deserved better than words that coddled her. The truth was complex and layered. Actions dictated identity as much as intention. Maybe every time Emma had protested that she wasn’t a hero, it was the same. Both truth and a lie. She had acted the part, regardless of her retirement or what she considered herself capable of.

 

“What I said before about you being a murderer if you kill me? Things happen in war. People do what they have to. It’s just the way of things.”

 

“Does it matter if I say I’m sorry it has to be this way?”

 

Regina laid her hand on the lantern, lost in thought again. The compassion she had given Emma flitted over her face but so did something that seemed like doubt. “I’m sorry too.”

 

“We—we still have a truce,” Emma said, as if it solved anything at all. “For now.”

 

“Yes, we do.”

 

###################

 

A hero did not apologize for intending to kill her nemesis. Seducing Emma, manipulating and twisting her trust would be so much easier if Emma wasn’t so Emma. Her games and masks kept falling away around her.

 

Like she’d forgotten how to keep them in place.

 

They came to a fork in the river, or it used to be. The path to the left was now a shower of rocks and rubble, a dead end.

 

“Another cave-in,” Emma noted. “That’s four.”

 

They saw another gate, destroyed just as the other one had been. Beyond it, the boat tipped over a slope and down a channel, jolting as it met even water again.

 

Emma chose to stay in the cabin for a bit after.

 

“Light up ahead,” Regina said and Emma rose, hunched over as if it would help her see out the windows better. Up above, in the center of the ceiling, a group of three crystals of varying length channelled the last stirrings of daylight outside.

 

In the lowlight they could see shapes in the water, many of them jutting up sharply. They assumed they were rocks. The tunnel widened and the river broadened into a lake.

 

They decided to sleep before navigating further. They knew from the cove they’d come across days ago that the crystals would reflect more light in the morning.

 

When they woke, sunlight from dozens of tiny holes high on the cavern walls made the trio of crystal shards glow a bright gold.

 

The remains of a large naval battle in the lake quickly overshadowed that beauty. Steel, not rocks, burst through surface of the water. Emma could not be sure how many of the boat skeletons she saw were pieces of the same ship; she guessed there may have been fifty decimated ships in all.The hulls of a dozen, some with cracked glass, some traditionally angular, pointed up from the watery depths at differing angels. Twenty or thirty more large steel masses could be seen in the crystal-clear water, lying in the sand at the bottom. On the shoreline more boats lay on their sides, reddish-brown with rust. There were several different kinds of boats: some like _Father’s Wish_ , a few that couldn’t have fit more than two people, others that must have held dozens. Many had scorch marks that spread outward from a central point of impact. Emma saw no evidence of what the boats had been fighting and it troubled her.

 

"I think I know what this is," Regina said breathlessly. "This might be the site of the Qualsara's last stand against Muirgen. There are blasts on the cave walls and on the ships; I don't know what else could have made them except magic.”

 

Emma could only see that it was going to be a bitch to get through. Worse, _Father's Wish_ needed a certain depth and there was likely a lot of debris they wouldn't be able to see until they got close.

 

"This is really going to slow us down," Emma said.

 

Regina investigated the lines of Emma’s face with the hot spotlight of her eyes. "The advanced technology of the Qualsara is thought to be a myth. This is the discovery of a lifetime. It could change so many things about how we see the past, about our understanding of what we’re capable of." She gave weight to every word she said, as if crafting an argument to loosen the purse strings of the lords and ladies of the kingdom.

 

Emma felt scolded; gently, a soft correction, but still. She gestured to the water. "Well, yeah, and we're going to have to get through all of that crap somehow."

 

"I don’t know why I bother. Are you really like this about everything?" Regina asked.

 

They were back to the “affliction” thing again. Emma didn’t know how to reply. She found herself trying a series of consonants and then a couple vowels, but getting nowhere. She knew she couldn't keep trying to avoid the issue. It wasn’t working.The easiest thing, the most logical thing, would be to lie, but she didn't want to. Yet telling the whole truth was too dangerous.

 

“I know I don't always react the way you expect me to.” It sounded more like an apology than she intended it to.

 

“I just wish I could understand it a little more.”

 

“I just...the way I am, I boil things down to basics. Like if you were to ask me about life, I’d think about heartbeats, blood pumping in your veins, the eyes seeing, or the ears hearing. I wouldn’t think about the meaning of it or the beginning of it, or babies or death or whatever. I know you think all of this is amazing. Like treasure. I just see steel and rocks.”

 

The words fell from her tongue and clunked between them, poorly made and not the right size. She curled her hand around Taz’s hilt. He could've explained it so much better.

 

"Always?" Regina stretched out the word, made it a tool to dig for fuller understanding.

 

Emma had already given a detailed answer. It felt dangerous to say too much more. "I know I’m a little bit different. Usually I can hide it better, but I do know.” She rubbed the back of her neck trying to ease the suddenly tight muscles there. “The caverns may make me even worse than normal because there's been so much stuff going on and I’m trying to get us home."

 

Regina gave the slightest tilt of her head, a nod.

 

“Anyway, I think I should go for a swim and clear us a path."

 

"You are going to go in the water?"

 

"I think that's the best way to make sure we get through safely."

 

Regina's face grew pained and wistful. "I wish my leg was better. I wish I could explore some of the ruins."

 

"Look, how about if I find anything interesting, I'll bring it back so you can take a look? "

 

Regina’s eyes glittered with child-like hope, but then she frowned. "You will?"

 

Emma shrugged. It would mean a lot to Regina and probably wouldn't add that much time. “If I do, could we not talk about what’s wrong with me again? Please?”

 

“Very well.” Regina said it the way someone did when what they were agreeing to was at least a little painful.

 

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

 

“You’re welcome, Captain.”

 


	15. Of bridges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! 
> 
> I return to you with chapter 14! Also, much progress has been made on my SQSN entry. It currently stands at 30k words but will probably be closer to 40 k when it's done. I'm so looking forward to sharing it with you. 
> 
> One (maybe?) interesting note about the epitaph this time: it represents the kind of twisting of history I think often happens to powerful women. And yes, especially by men. I was thinking of Catherine the Great as I wrote it and how the prevailing story after her death, despite her many accomplishments, made her a sexual deviant.
> 
> Garden of Heroes - come for the Swanqueen, leave with a random perspective on history.
> 
> I'm a little more nervous about posting than usual because it's been a bit and in this chapter, a few important things quietly happen. Hope you enjoy and if you get a second, send me some love.

 

_As a girl, the evil queen became enamored with one far below her station. She seduced him and showered him with gifts. Now the queen had a mother who was very ambitious. She had heard rumors of her daughter’s tryst, and she searched for the man’s identity so he could be quietly dealt with._

 

_It so happened in those days, the king and our beloved Snow were visiting all of the fiefs in the realm. When they visited the queen’s castle, the queen, following her mother’s direction began to use her wiles on the king. However, the queen’s nature was a greedy one and she had no intention of giving up her lover even if she succeeded in marrying him._

 

_Snow loved her father and knew something was not right with the queen. She spied on her, trying to discover if the queen’s heart was true. One day, she stumbled upon the queen with her lover and cried out in surprise. She and the queen began to argue._

 

_What none of them knew was that Snow’s sound of surprise had been heard by the queen’s mother who, upon rushing over to see what was the matter, finally learned the knowledge she’d been seeking. The queen’s mother cast a spell on Snow so she would forget what she had discovered and murdered her daughter’s paramour._

 

\-- Lord Amon Karse, letter to bards and historians

 

**Garden of Heroes - Of Bridges**

 

As Emma waded into the water, the chill of it bit into her. She imagined the misery of the sharp, icy teeth continuing to gnaw on her slowly and decided to get it over with, diving in. The instant shock made all of her muscles tense. As her body acclimated to the temperature, the weightlessness of the water caressed her bruised muscles.

 

She tested out her arm, a tiny ache but then it behaved itself.

 

She was at least free of the hampering of her dress. The decision to remove everything but her undergarments had been practical. The boat tended to be warm, but she didn’t trust the caverns which, before, the boat, attacked them with random spikes of cold wind. If that — or one of a dozen things Emma couldn’t predict — happened, better for her to have something dry and warm to wear.

 

Debris stretched out all around her. Sharp points rising from the water or bulky, rusty beasts jutting up from the sand far below. She kept her eyes out for anything that might be of worth to Regina as she determined what she could push to the side and what she couldn’t. _Father’s Wish_ making it to the other side of the lake was the priority.

 

She found a crusted-over cannonball, a piece of a wheel that reminded her of the one on their ship, and a corroded sword hilt. She handed the pieces up to Regina from the water. Regina’s cheeks developed red splotches as she was forced to face Emma’s semi-naked form.

 

It made Emma pause and realize that Regina had been studiously examining or cleaning artifacts since she’d taken off her dress. She wondered if Regina experienced a similar simmering over her skin, a rush in her body the way Emma sometimes did, now that Regina was showing much more bare skin.

 

She bobbed low in the water a moment before tugging her thoughts back to the task at hand.

 

She cleared a path to the other side of the lake where the water spilled into another tunnel, then swam back to the ship. Her arm throbbed from the exertion, not quite fully healed just yet.

 

Deep in the water, a small bit of metal winked at her. She frowned, trying to gauge the depth. Several dark masses surrounded it, one of them a large barnacled rock. She thought she could make it. It would test her lungs, but she couldn’t help thinking there might be something worth getting.

 

“Regina,” she called. “I see something below. I’m going to check on it.”

 

She didn’t wait for a reply, pulling in a deep breath and diving down.

 

As she drew closer, she made out the handle of some kind of weapon encased in the stone. With some prying back and forth, the part of the rock with the artifact came loose. She pushed herself deeper still, fingers searching in the sand as a bubble of air escaped her and floated to the surface.

 

Her forefinger and thumb found her prize: a silver ring. The band had a design but she couldn’t make it out. Her chest began to burn. She glanced around for anything else of value and saw a metal arrowhead too large to be a conventional arrow. She collected it then pushed off the ground, legs kicking frantically. Her arms worked just as feverishly, a twinge of pain with every movement of her bad arm. Her throat pinched and relaxed convulsively, desperate for breath.

 

The hand with the ring broke the surface first and she heaved in air as she followed.

 

“Emma.” Regina had dragged herself as close to edge of the boat as she could.

 

“Hey,” Emma replied after a beat, still panting. “Found you some more stuff.”

 

The tension in Regina’s face retreated. “You idiot. How many times do I have to tell you to stop charging toward things?”

 

“Habit.”

 

“So you keep saying.”

 

Emma climbed back onto the ship from the aft end, navigating the piping smoke and the engine to rejoin Regina. Emma set down the new artifacts with the others. “There's a ton more down there. Just…”

 

Regina nodded. “I know, we only have a few more days of supplies. We have to keep going. What you found is wonderful. The detail on this ring...” Regina held up the ring to the light and rubbed at it with cloth. “It has tiny horses running around the band. You can see their manes and the muscles in their legs.”

 

Emma bent down to see. Horses galloped in the silver, running there for eternity. “Nice,” she said, though her tone was non-committal at best.

 

Regina glanced away from the artifacts and towards Emma, but immediately jerked her eyes away. “Perhaps you should get dressed.”

 

Emma grabbed her dress from the deck and eyed Regina. “Uh, could you turn around for a second?”

 

“So, you wish me to give you your privacy so you can get even more dressed?” Regina settled back on one arm, stretching out languidly, as if waiting to be pampered or served. “Are you a prude, Savior?”

 

Even if the topic hadn’t so drastically turned on her, hearing Regina call her savior would have thrown her off; she rarely called her that anymore.

 

“I’ve heard many stories about you,” Regina said, “but not about that. And what of me, I wonder? Have you heard things?”

 

“I’m not sure you’d like what I’ve heard, Your Majesty.”

 

Emma ducked below, though the queen was right, it made no sense to be modest to get dressed when she was already undressed. She returned but stayed near the stairway, giving Regina as wide a berth as she could.

 

“That only makes me more curious.” Her eyes reached out, offering suggestions that were too vague to be put into words, but heat spread down Emma’s neck, and made her mind tingle with awareness.

 

Emma tensed, blinked a few times, fingers playing at the wet hair at the back of her head. “Nothing worth repeating.”

 

“Come now, Emma. You’re not suddenly going to be shy. I can guess. Did you hear stories of my appetite, perhaps?”

 

Regina’s lips curved with secrets. Red flags waved their alarm inside Emma. “I think powerful women always get the slut or virgin treatment. So, ah, anyway, what I found was pretty good?”

 

Regina, reminded of her treasures, placed the ring on her index finger and raised it up to catch the light from the oven. “I’m still amazed by the detail,” she said in a hushed voice. She pushed into a sitting position and changed from temptress to passionate scholar. “I’ll need tools to clean them all properly. There are probably old tomes on the Qualsara I’ll need to acquire.”

 

Emma relaxed as Regina’s focus completely shifted.

 

“The Library of Malack perhaps. The Emerlas. Perhaps some of my contacts in Zenvum.” Regina’s voice rose a notch and painted a vision of future hours spent lovingly scrutinizing each piece. Then softer, to herself. “I wish we had more time. Maybe one day I can come back.” She smoothed hair back from her face and paused, one moment, then two, the excitement leaking away from her. “Of course, it won’t matter.”

 

“What, you mean to the people? Well, maybe not to everyone, but someone will care what you found.“

 

A hard shell formed around Regina disguised as amusement. “Do you remember me telling you I had invited all the kingdom’s best scholars to teach at my school, and none of them came?” Regina dragged the rock with the weapon handle protruding from it closer then carefully filed at it with her dagger. “They despise me so much that they will never allow anything I ever do to have merit.”

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

With great care, she dug at a barnacle with the tip of her knife. “Don’t I? All you’ve been through and yet you’re still so naive. If I could, I would give all of this knowledge to the kingdom like a gift. But they aren’t smart enough to accept what I offer. So, it will be just another collection of mine.” She chuckled but it rang hollow. “Your mother...they doted on every word she said. I never learned the secret of how she did it with so little effort.”

 

Emma wanted to give Regina a speech about hope. She wished to be able to fashion words into fiery inspiration that could leap past doubt and find a way to the other side. She couldn’t; not with her stone heart.

 

“Wait, what if it was anonymous?” Emma asked.

 

“What?” The word wasn’t a question so much as an expression of surprise.

 

“I mean, it’s not perfect, but it’s a way, right?”

 

“But I...I shouldn’t have to…”

 

“I know, I get that. But it’s a possibility, right? So, it’s not impossible.”

 

Regina brow furrowed deeply as if she couldn’t decide whether she liked or disliked what she was hearing. “Perhaps.”

 

She quieted after that. Emma didn’t know exactly what to make of it, but didn’t have time to analyze it. Regina steered and Emma stayed on deck. She climbed as close to the front as she could, a good vantage point to spot anything she had missed when clearing the way for the boat to pass through.

 

They went on slowly, causing ripples in water not disturbed for hundreds of years. Emma leaned forward, as if expecting an ambush of debris at any moment. _Father’s Wish_ protected them, offered sanctuary. One errant piece of metal cutting into its side or underneath, and Emma didn’t know how they would survive.

 

“That looks close,” Regina said through the glass separating them, nodding at the jagged side of a broken ship.

 

Emma checked. “We’re good.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Trust me.”

 

“I —” the single word snagged between them. Whatever Regina was going to say, she nodded instead.

 

They squeezed by it, with a few inches to spare.

 

After what felt like days, they made it to the other side of the lake where the water funnelled into a channel. There, protruding from ledges high above, two cannons pointed directly at them. They weren’t like any cannons Emma had ever seen — each had a cylinder of six barrels. Lower, the remains of a small overlook, scarred by the fiery blast that had destroyed it, continued the story of the battle. Large sections of the walls on either side of the river were discolored and marked by dozens of impacts, as if giant fists had struck them over and over.

 

“The battle didn’t stop back there, it doesn’t look like,” Emma said.

 

“No, not if this is what I think it is. Murgein obliterated the Qualsara. The stories say that she chased down every last man, woman and child. Quite wise of her, I think.”

 

################

 

Not far past the lake, Emma admitted that her arm was hurting her and they agreed to stop for a few hours.

 

Regina mourned simplicity as they took their rest.

 

The evil queen had often used the tactics of carefully-crafted shows of vulnerability and the slow cultivation of lust that chased away reason but was never satisfied. She lured the fools who wanted her like a mermaid’s song drew sailors toward rocks. She used them, broke them, and abandoned them. It didn’t feel so simple down here. The prize not so clear-cut.

 

Regina did her best to clean the artifacts as Emma napped. The vigorous rubbing of metal with the remains of one of her sleeves occupied her hands but not her mind.

 

She thought on the revelations she had managed to wheedle from Emma.

 

Emma’s noble heart, stone or not, could not carry the idea of being a murderer, which was perfect. She had been ready to let that image and that word do their twisted work and paralyze the savior. The doubts in Emma’s mind about the “goodness” of her actions would sprout like weeds and strangle her will. Regina knew how to play this game well; all she needed to do was let things run their course then reap the benefits of Emma’s doubts.

 

Except at the moment of her victory, she had withdrawn. Emma’s discomfort, or whatever it had been, had troubled her. She had wanted to console her.

 

Foolish.

 

Her eyes jumped to Emma’s sleeping form, the dirt gone from her face since her swim. The smooth lines of her high cheekbones half-lit, small chin jutted up as if challenging the caverns. Her soft golden hair still short but ragged, parted to one side. She wondered if Emma ever grew it out so that it framed her face and the edges teased her shoulders.

 

Emma tossed and turned as if she couldn’t get comfortable: on her side, then her back, curled into herself, then stretched out. No matter how she adjusted her body, she kept her hand on Taz’s pommel, ready to protect them all.

 

Regina found herself wanting to tell her things, secrets she had never been able to tell anyone. Mostly because she had no one who would listen.

 

The caverns stripped away all pretense and pride. They showed the fragility of life by denying what most took for granted: safety, shelter, light and food. She was left with whoever she was without her crown, her magic, and all the trappings of royalty and power.

 

Someone she barely knew.

 

A flash of Emma’s shapely body cutting through the water entered her mind. Another assault immediately followed the first: how drops of water had beaded on her skin, grazed down the muscles of her arms or the flat her stomach, and invited Regina to let her gaze fall lower still.

 

She closed her eyes so tightly she saw white, forcing the images away.

 

Over the years she infrequently took lovers — men and women. Usually after one of her banquets. Some spoke prettily and dreamed of what they might wheedle out of her. Others were startled by her aggressiveness, a hunter pouncing on prey. Were she Emma, she would have tried seduction at the banquet. Their lively debate could have easily transformed into a more intimate kind of battle.

 

But a realization struck her: She had never killed any of them. Ever. Though she had turned one into a pig for a few weeks. She let all of them live. She had killed so many, but never anyone she had let into her bed.

 

“I can’t sleep,” Emma muttered. She wearily trudged toward their new water receptacle, lifted it with both hands and drank.

 

“Have you shared your bed with many?”

 

Emma erupted into a coughing fit. She cleared her throat before speaking. “I don’t think I understand the question?”

 

“You’re the savior. People must have been clamoring for your attention. Did you enjoy the fruit of your reputation?”

 

“I mean, uh, a little? Things like that can get complicated when I don’t want them to. I have this speech I give before I sleep with a woman.”

 

“Oh, do tell.”

 

Emma indulged her, though she wasn’t sure she should. “Hey so and so, I think you’re beautiful and I’m attracted to you but, given my responsibilities, I can’t offer a commitment or love or more than tonight. I don’t want to hurt you, so if you want more than that, we should say goodnight now.”

 

“And that worked?”

 

“No, that’s the problem. Six women, six speeches, three fails. Those three thought I was lonely and they could share my burden, or whatever.”

 

Regina should end it there; a casual conversation to pass time. The more they knew about one another, the harder this would be later on.

 

“Only women?” Regina told herself she could cease their discussion after she knew the answer to that one question.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“And it never developed into more than just a night?”

 

“No, though my friend Ruby had feelings for me for a while. We talked about it but it didn’t go very well. She gave me the silent treatment for a month.” She touched Taz’s blade. “Taz said telling her that ‘we just make better friends’ was something a particularly slow-witted troll would say and trolls eat their own feces.”

 

“And you’ve never loved anyone?”

 

Emma shrugged.

 

The evil queen in Regina cackled. The savior unable to love? How delicious that was to the part of her that still raged at everything the world had denied her. She thought of words that would mock Emma’s deficiency, given she was the mystical child of true love. They waited on her tongue, ready to attack. She used none of them.

 

“Is that because of the…” She didn’t complete the question. She had promised not to discuss Emma’s “issue.”

 

She grew frustrated with herself; since when did promises to anyone about anything supersede her desire to win? Regina tried to summon icy thorns to rise inside her, surround her heart, and protect her from her own foolishness.

 

“As enthralling as this history on your love life is, Savior, since neither of us can sleep, perhaps we should continue.”

 

“I was just answering your questions. Besides, like your life is riveting? Sitting alone in that castle, prioritizing the people who have earned your wraith? You have a list, don’t you? You can tell me.”

 

“I do not have a list.” She sniffed haughtily. “I have a vast collection of books. I study, I learn. I like to educate myself.”

 

“Ohhh, so you’re like the wise crone on the hill.”

 

“I will not dignify that with a response.”

 

Emma considered her. “You need a more raspy voice though. Maybe missing teeth.”

 

Regina threw a core of fruit at Emma, striking her just above her ear. Emma tossed it back to her. “You throw like a crone.”

 

Regina rolled her eyes and laughed, a soft burst of sound that made her feel weightless and more at ease than she had in a long time. More herself. She liked it. 

 

It made things impossible.

 

She found herself saying more instead of ending the conversation. “I turned a lover into a pig once. He refused to leave. He swore that if I let him stay the night, I would feel like a ‘real woman’. I assured him I did not want or need his help with that. He kept babbling about what he could give me. A pig seemed appropriate. I did eventually let him go.”

 

“That’s a rough morning after.”

 

“I changed him back before releasing him.”

 

Regina wondered why she insisted on encouraging this...this...sharing between herself and the savior. Emma, she corrected herself automatically.

 

“Do any of these people who have the courage to try and, um, gain your favor ever want more? Like marriage or something.”

 

“They always want as much as I will give them. But since Daniel, there’s been no one who I wanted with me. All their wasted expensive gifts and grand words. Daniel won me with a kind smile and flowers he had picked from a nearby field. Once he tried to teach me to fish. I adored him for it, though I fell in the lake and ruined my dress. My mother was furious. She preferred that I avoid looking ‘common’. Preferred is really too light a word. She demanded it.”

 

She had never said these things to anyone. Neither of them spoke for a beat. She began to wander through the memories of all the times she had disappointed her mother.

 

“Daniel, he’s the man your mother killed? I’ve…” Emma hesitated, “heard a lot of stories about what happened.”

 

Regina knew all the versions of her story. “I loved him.” She stressed each word because the stories denied her even that. Maybe some part of her wanted Emma to believe it, if nothing else. “I think it will always come down to stories about me and how people twisted them to show me at my worst.”

She remembered his smile, spreading wide and toothy in greeting whenever she snuck away to meet him. She could no longer clearly picture his face, but his grin used to make her heart fill with wonder.

 

And hope.

 

“Once we snuck away to a puppet show in the town square,” Regina said. “Something else my mother would have never approved of. It was a very good day. One of my best.”

 

“Are there other things you’ve wanted to do but couldn’t because they were ‘common’?”

 

The question broke Regina free of the past, and more, it lured her away from the harsher realities of the world above. “I do not usually discuss these things. Not with anyone.”

 

“There’s a lot we’ve talked about that I don’t usually talk about. Not like this.”

 

“These caverns,” Regina mused. “Between the dangers, the almost starving, and the wonders — I suppose it’s hard to feel much less act normal. It’s a unique situation.”

 

“Right. So, why not sorta take advantage of that and not worry about what we do or don’t usually say. There’s no harm in it, right?”

 

“Perhaps not. To a degree. But Savior —”

 

“Emma or Captain,” Emma corrected.”

 

“Savior,” she said firmly. “Our truce and all that it implies, or has been adjusted to imply, will expire once we leave.” Her words adopted a formality and stiffness. A means to obscure her longing for a period of surrender, of just being. “Also, any revelations must be done in equal measure. I will tell you things, if you tell me things of equal worth.”

 

“Are we playing ‘questions’ again, Your Majesty?”

 

“Unless you object to it, Captain.”

 

“I don’t if you go first.”

 

“Very well.” Regina scooted towards Emma, close enough to see her face, hear her breath or even touch her. Emma tilted her head, a silent question about Regina’s proximity that she never voiced. Regina’s pulse quickened, her body energized, it reminded her of the swell inside her before she cast a spell.

 

Regina couldn’t keep still and two fingers traced a pattern up and down over the rivets. She wondered if this was what standing on a cliff felt like, an illogical internal dare making someone creep as close as they could to the edge, even if they knew they wouldn’t jump.

 

“I saw peasants dancing at a festival once,” Regina said, “and the music kept getting faster, and there were eggs all over the ground they were trying not to break. I haven’t danced very much and that day my husband was in a rush to attend to other business. I only saw it in passing.”

 

“That’s actually called an egg dance.”

 

“You’ve done it?”

 

“Badly. Though, my friends and I actually used to do a lot of pranks with eggs.”

 

“I’ve never played a prank on anyone either. Tell me about one.”

 

Facing one another, they talked till their eyes grew heavy.

 

#####################

 

The tunnel ended, opening up into a huge cavern. The walls shot up on either side of them till their ship and the river itself looked like a tiny speck next to the towering sheets of stone. On a ledge above, they could see fragments of iron that were probably the remains of a cannon. Across from it, a partially collapsed stone shelf and debris, both metal and stone.

 

They slowed again as they encountered giant stones in their path, and four long, large guns poked their muzzles from the water.

 

“Emma, what’s that?”

 

Regina pointed ahead and above them at a bridge with three connected arches running from one side of the river to the other. Two towers marked the center of it. From the right landing, an unseen source of glowing light created shadows across it.

 

In the water beneath were the remains of a mammoth dock, now half sunk. In places, only posts that must have held planks in place remained. Stone stairs led up from the dock to the bridge above. As they grew closer, they saw more sunken ships, many showing the familiar burn marks and holes made by some kind of repeated impact.

 

“Well,” Emma said, “we can keep going or we can see what’s up there.”

 

Regina stared at her, eyes incredulous.

 

Emma held up her hands in surrender. “Right, we’ll stop and take a look.”

 

Emma pulled the boat up to what remained of the dock and Regina, makeshift crutch under her arm, stepped onto the wood without waiting for Emma. “There’s a statue atop the tower in the middle,” she murmured and limped toward the staircase. Emma rested Taz over one shoulder and followed.

  



	16. Of Propositions and Gifts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Apologies (again) about the delay. Also, a thank you to all of you who gently prodded me and told me they missed this story. That kind of feedback is such a bright light on dark days. You never know what is going on with a creator, whether they have drifted because of writer’s block, serious personal issues, real-life chaos or whatever. I appreciate your patience.
> 
> Some news:  
> 1\. I took a break to write for GoH, in part, to write a SQ story called “Five Flames” as past of SQ Supernova. First time I have ever participated in one. “Five Flames” is about 60k. For me, that’s practically a short story. Take a look at “Five Flames” and tell me what you think when you have a moment. It’s complete and everything. (Product placement and marketing is all about repetition, no?)  
> 2\. I am FINALLY ahead again in this story by a few chapters. Huzzah! This chapter and the next two chapters are almost done. Huzzah again! I have the outline, too, of course. Huzzah a third time! No one ever expects three Huzzah’s in one point. I like to keep you all guessing.  
> 3\. Happy Holidays to all of you. Okay, that’s not news as much as a heartfelt wish, but….it is newslike. Newsy? Newsly? Anyway, grab your favorite beverage, snuggle something or someone (no judgements) and make some ‘cheer’ time in the next few days. Me? I plan to wear a reindeer hat to my cousins and hang out with him, my wife and my niece.
> 
> On this flight, there are clear skies but much internal debate. Also, as on most flights, banter may cause a dip in cabin pressure and could make you laugh. Virtual hot chocolate, peppermint sticks, gingerbread men, latkes, jerk chicken and vegan meatballs will be served throughout the flight.
> 
> My love and bright, shining wishes for a happy New Year to all of you.
> 
> With the chorus of jingle bells stuck in my head, this, as always, is your captain speaking.

 

 

**Garden of Heroes - Of Propositions and Gifts**

 

 

 _They say only one has seen the queen’s black heart_  —  _an alchemist she sought to cure her. When he told her that the corruption could not be undone, she killed him. My friends, this is who she is. Evil wearing a guise, incapable of humanity because she is no longer human. Let us not forget that she chose to defile herself and become a monster._

 

_It will be, in the end, her destruction or our own._

 

  * _Lord William Castor, addressing the Silver Council at Blackheart Mountain_



 

Regina’s temples pounded and her stomach soured, the effort of ascending the staircase to the bridge pushing body harder than she expected. Her arrival at the top dashed her hopes of exploration. The bridge was mangled, half of it crushed and tumbled into the water below. Tell-tale black scorch marks across its length continued the story of the Qualsara’s battle against Muirgein.

 

She held up the torch to try to see the extent of the destruction. In some places, she and Emma could proceed if they moved single-file. In others, it would be trickier.

 

“It’s not very high.” Regina said, noticing that they were only twenty feet or so above the docks and the river itself.

 

“I’m more worried about us falling and then getting buried under rocks. I don’t know, Regina. You think this what’s left will even hold our weight?”

 

A valid point to raise, but Regina could just see the mouth of a tunnel up ahead and from it spilled hints of light. “I think I’d like to understand if it might lead to a way out. If we have another option besides the ship.”

 

Emma looked over her shoulder at the docks they had come from. “There could be something useful up there but mostly I just want us to stay in one piece,” Emma said. “Can we agree that if anything seems unstable — anything at all — we’ll turn back?”

 

“Yes, of course.”

 

Emma nodded. She twirled her sword and slid past Regina. “I’ll go first. We’ll go slow.”

 

They picked their way across. There were small stumbles. As they moved, dust shimmered down from the remnants of the bridge’s foundation and small stones gave way and dropped into the water below. At one point Regina misstepped and pitched forward. Before she could fall, Emma snagged her around the waist and pulled her to safety.

 

“Thank you, Captain,” she said, out of breath as she tried to recover from the shock of almost falling.

 

Emma didn’t let go, giving her time. Emma’s body warmed hers, she relaxed into circle of Emma’s muscular arm around her. They no longer had to negotiate moments where they helped one another. It seemed, for lack of a better word, normal.

 

“You still want to keep going?” Emma asked.

 

“We’re almost there,” she said, too stubborn to stop now.

 

“Okay, one big step,” Emma said, releasing her and staring at the three or four feet of distance between where they were and the boulder they needed to reach. “If there are Brylu or spiders on the other side, I’m going to say ‘I told you so’. Just so you know.”

 

“A fair and fitting punishment.”

 

Emma leapt first. The sound of rocks cracking and falling as she landed made her freeze. They both waited, eyes meeting. Nothing further happened. Emma tested the ground she stood on by whacking it with Taz’s blade. They listened for sounds of crumbling rock, or anything else that would indicate danger. There was nothing except the wind in the distance. Emma straightened, satisfied. She stretched one foot across to straddle the gap.

 

“Okay, step one foot over, brace yourself on my shoulders and move across.”

 

Regina did. Somehow following Emma’s direction didn’t chafe. Emma had shown herself to be remarkably competent at surviving these caverns. Regina trusted her intentions and her capabilities.

 

She reached the other side and smiled tightly at Emma. “You see? Nothing to it.”

 

“You do realize that us not dying isn’t the bar for something being easy.”

 

Emma joined her and they climbed up several easy-to-reach footholds, finally ascending to where the bridge hung mostly intact.

 

The ground became even, bricks interconnecting perfectly. The sensation of moving over smooth, paved ground felt familiar in a way very little had. The sign of civilization in this desolate place, even if it was hundreds of years old, comforted her.

 

When they reached the two tall spires, Regina examined them, spotting words etched in the stone. “Man does not need magic to create miracles,” she read aloud. She studied the other marker. Neat letters carved there proclaimed the same message.

 

“The Qualsara. This is what they believed.”

 

She focused on the tunnel ahead, a short one that emerged into what she could see was a considerably large cave. Colored tiles she could not quite make out paved the floor within.

 

She rushed forward, throwing herself into each hobble, the hair near her temples dampening with sweat.

 

“Regina,” Emma called after her. “I was going to go first, remember.”

 

Regina could not have imagined the size of the cavern she entered — the round sprawling courtyard had to be at least the size of her palace throne room. Three sets of stairs rose from the courtyard to a gaping indentation at the back wall of the cave, where two levels of buildings had been carved into the rock.

 

On the first tier lay the rubble of buildings, mangled stone walls that had fallen within or just outside. So many stones scorched, partially gray as if burned.

 

As her eyes traveled from right to left, the destruction lessened until by the middle of the cave, it stopped entirely. On the left, a tall tower of stone stood almost pristine. It was the width of three of four gatehouses at the bottom, the second floor a little smaller and the last smaller still.

 

The cannons, the graveyard of ships, even the grotto where they had found the fruit should have prepared her. The storybooks and legends of her childhood came to life in the stone before her.

 

“It’s real,” Regina said. She couldn’t make her mind move past that reality.

 

Every ten feet in the main square stood a marble pillar. Her fingertips touched one, stroking the smooth lines and curves of the tall figure sculpted in relief. A woman, in profile, with one leg and foot raised as if she were stepping up. Above and a bit to the right a man mimicked the same movement. As her eyes moved up, she saw more people, all climbing an endless spiral staircase to the ceiling of the cave.

 

“They were here. This has to be them.”

 

When her shocked mind could function again, Regina tried to take in one area at the time starting with the main floor. Untempered exhilaration surged inside of her, increasing in urgency and speed with every moment. Like riding Rocinante, galloping until she tasted the freedom she yearned for.

 

The centerpiece of the square was a raised platform, three steps circling it, with a well flanked by two giant statues. The statues were like nothing she had ever seen, patches of metal twisted into the shape of two giant men, standing at least a story high. They flanked the well, each on one knee, reaching up toward the roof of the cave. Centered over the well, a circle of stained glass spread out over the plaza. It shimmered with different shades of blue, light at the edges and growing bolder and darker as it reached the middle. Diamond shaped hints of gold and white were sprinkled all over it. The center was an ivory white circle,with an intricately designed hammer inside it. She almost missed the word _miracle_ in the swirling designs along the hammer’s head.

 

“Could it represent the night sky?” Regina whispered. “They wouldn’t have been able to see it. Perhaps they missed it?”

 

Emma patrolled near her, continuously checking the area around them. “Yeah, maybe,” she said, unemotional as always.

 

“Emma, this —” It felt too big to say. She laughed to herself. “This is where the Qualsara fled to. They fought Muirgein. They held her at bay for two years.”

 

She gestured to the rubble with Taz. “Looks like Muirgein got through though.”

 

Emma’s nonchalant reaction made Regina’s brow crease, a mild nagging frustration briefly pulling her away from the wonder of this place. She realized her arms and legs were chilled, a self-inflicted wound because she had wanted to use her seductive charms on the savior. She couldn’t hold that against Emma any more than she could blame her for reacting without emotions she couldn’t feel.

“Historians have debated the existence of this place for a hundreds of years.” She wanted to try to explain, hoping that on some level she could get Emma to understand what this place meant, what it was.

 

Regina realized that it should be much darker, instead it reminded her of dusk; a gentle but faithful means for her to see. She sought the source of light and saw that each kneeling, steel-constructed man held a perfect translucent crystal so tall it almost reached the ceiling.

 

She then noticed that pipes with lanterns protruded from the walls every few feet. Regina could open the folds of time and see it as it must have been. “Look, it’s like the lanterns we saw on the walls near the river. Hundreds of them, from the lowest level to the ceiling. This place never knew full darkness.”

 

In the center, toward the back of the plaza, were two wide buildings with two more above them that matched their width and construction. Through the huge arched entrances, she could just make out ornate designs and colors on the inner walls.  “Those buildings in the middle are much larger. They’re large enough to be meeting halls, but why four of them?”

 

“She killed all of them, right?”

 

The question in the presence of such single-minded destruction pricked her heart. She knew herself to be capable of the same malice. “That’s what the stories say.”

 

Emma took a step towards the area that remained immaculate on the left, lacking the signs of burning. “Why would she destroy only half the village then stop?”

 

An immediate grim answer sprang into Regina’s mind. “Perhaps she had killed them all.”

 

She broke free of her thoughts, bending to pick up one of the painted tiles that had paved the courtyard. A man reverently held up a hammer toward the starry sky. Each tile was a work of art, telling the story of the Qualsara’s love of craftsmanship, invention, and ingenuity. A laugh bubbled inside her, but she couldn’t quite catch her breath enough to give it sound. “I hardly know where to look. There’s too much.”

 

She turned, face glowing, only to meet Emma’s usual dull gaze. She knew why; they’d discussed it and she had even developed a few theories on the cause of Emma’s condition. Still, she couldn’t stop a knot of disappointment from tightening her throat.

 

Her guilt, tiny but annoying as always, kept following and poking at her. If what she suspected was true, the Crystal Curse had caused Emma’s condition.

 

She told herself what she always did when confronted with the ramifications of her actions: she had done what she had to. No use lingering on it, especially when there was so much wonder around her.

 

On the left, four pillars stood as guardians of the untouched great tower. Four balconies overlooked the plaza from the second story. Between them, tall, arched windows would have let in light. On the bottom floor was a wide entry, with double-doors, one mangled, hanging by its hinges. “They weren’t down here for more than a few years before she destroyed them. How could they have done this? How could we have forgotten this was possible?”

 

Emma rested the flat of Taz’s blade on her shoulder and glanced back toward the bridge. “Yeah, it’s impressive,” she said.

 

“Did they have royalty? Or a priest? Who did they honor with a palace like that?”

 

“Dunno.” Emma moved forward, peering into every building she could, still looking for any sign of danger.

 

Regina rubbed her hand over her face in frustration. For a moment, she wanted someone else — anyone who could see this place and share her awe — to be with her. She tried to imagine that as a real choice. She reviewed everyone she knew, all who might serve. She found no one better than Emma. Even with her affliction and her badly disguised lack of understanding and interest, Emma listened. She worried about their safety. She asked for nothing.

 

“All of this,” Regina said. “Everything they built. The sounds of their work must have been constant.”

 

Only silence remained now, everything absent except her own breathing and Emma’s shifting movements.

 

The discovery thrilled her, tingles vibrating down to her bones. Yet, she could not deny the loneliness. She stood in a place where spirits from the past whispered their secrets but Emma did not — could not — feel their hauntings.

 

Emma wandered here and there, stretching out to investigate nooks and crannies. “I’m going to explore a little. See if there’s an exit or supplies. We should keep moving.”

 

Regina deflated, all of the air leaving her in a deep sigh. “Of course.”

 

Emma noticed and drew closer, studying her intently. “I said I’d get us out of here. I promised you.” She kept searching Regina’s face. “I’m trying to keep my word. That’s a good thing, right?”

 

Affection rose in Regina at Emma’s sincere confusion. “This is a remarkable find, Emma. That does not discount the need for us to be safe or to find a way out. People can want many things all at the same time.”

 

“I get that. But usually isn’t there an answer that’s, well, the right one? That’s always been how it is for me.”

 

“Have you considered that usually when one person gets what is ‘right’ for them, the natural consequence is that it will be ‘wrong’ for someone else?”

 

Emma grimaced. “That’s really dark.”

 

“Well,” Regina motioned to herself.

 

“Evil queen,” they said as one.

 

“You should do what you have to, Emma. I’ll remain here. Perhaps I’ll find something worth further study and take it with us.”

 

Emma kept watching her. “This place means a lot to you. As much as getting out?”

 

“No, of course not. But it’s important. We, everyone, were missing a part of ourselves. And here it is, and it’s such a majestic lost piece to our stories. Their vision of who we could be is all around us. This is a doorway into their world. Their dreams. And ours too.”

 

Emma didn’t react. Of course she didn’t. Instead she examined the ruins again, as if trying to make a final determination on if they were friend or foe. “You know what? I think we’ve been pushing ourselves pretty hard. This place seems pretty safe, right? Quiet. I don’t know about you, but I’m sore all over and I’m exhausted. We could probably use a break. I mean, just for a day or two. Like, a vacation from the caverns.”

 

Regina started. “You mean, stay here?”

 

“Well, yeah,” Emma said, eyes latching onto Regina’s face once more. “If you want. I just need to scout around first and make sure everything is on the up and up. Also we’re low on food, but if the Qualsara were the ones that set up that fruit farm thing we found, then they’re bound to have something close to the village. Probably. So, yeah, if all of that works out, we could stay a bit.”

 

Regina should have only one thought and goal: the kingdom and ensuring she kept it. She stood as straight and commanding as she could, trying to summon the iron will she used to rule over those who loathed her, so she could tell Emma they should go back to the boat. Nothing in this place would give her an advantage in the battle against the traitorous lords of her kingdom. Nothing about it would benefit her as queen.

 

But as Regina?

 

She wanted to lovingly pore over every pebble. So much here to learn, discoveries for the taking. For a moment, hope pushed open the door to exhilaration.

 

She knew better. She tried to slam it shut again.

 

She couldn’t.

 

So many denials in her youth as her mother molded her into the perfect lady and tempered her to rule when the opportunity arose.

 

Here, no one would tell her no. She did not have to deny or hide what she wanted for fear of reprisals or that others would see it as weakness.

 

“So what do you think?” Emma asked.

 

Regina smiled. She tried to hide the absolute fullness of it. She doubted that she succeeded.

 

#################################

 

She barely heard Emma leave, her mind busy planning her explorative assault on the Qualsara village. She only picked up something about yelling for her if needed as Emma departed.

 

Regina could see the fading colors of a mural around an arched doorway of the tower. Words neatly drawn, in thick lines that flowed into the next word. She couldn’t read them...they were too worn and she was across the plaza.

 

She needed to be closer and brush the dust away. Well, she had days now. Days!

 

More than she could have hoped for. Yet it barely seemed like any time at all. Order, she told herself, would be the best way to make use of her time. She would try not to spend too much time in one place unless it truly warranted it. Her eyes cataloged everything she could see and her mind began a list of things she wanted to investigate.

 

Emma would have to help her reach the upper levels.

 

Emma would, without more than a quiet attempt at humor. The certainty of that pushed even more giddiness to the surface. She had grown accustomed to Emma’s generous and affable nature. She could count on her assistance.

 

She touched the flat sheets of metal of one of the statues near the well. She could feel etchings there, too, and blew away a fine layer of dirt. Neat geometric patterns of triangles and lines regimented the space of each shining square — art inside art.

 

Maybe even Muirgein, the mother of dark magicks, couldn’t bring herself to destroy such beauty.

 

She wanted to show Emma.

 

She turned to the opening Emma had gone through. Of course, Emma wouldn’t be back for some time. She would have to be patient.

 

Regina looked down at the ring on her finger. When she turned the band, the etched horses there ran. Emma, her enemy, dove deep into a lake to find it for her.

 

Emma had wanted to get going, but they stayed because Emma, as usual, was being thoughtful.

 

Regina didn’t like to consider what she deserved or didn’t deserve.

 

She couldn’t help the quiet introduction of the question into her thoughts. She chose not to linger on it.

 

A set of gears at the top of the well were connected to the rope that suspend the bucket. Taking great care, she climbed the stairs. When she reached the top, she peered inside the well. She couldn’t make out much but she thought she saw water and glints of metal. She wondered if they tossed coins into it or if was just more of their intricate designs.

 

The bucket, in near-perfect condition, hung above her. On the side of the well, instead of a handle, she found a lever. She pushed down on it, a little tentative. It didn’t budget. She rubbed her hands together, took a firmer hold and shoved down. It stayed stubbornly immobile.

 

She took a careful look around, shifted her weight onto her good leg and braced herself on the side of the stone well. She tried with all her might, puffing with the effort. It creaked and moved about an inch before jamming. She lifted the pickaxe and did her best to strike the obstinate piece of metal. In a half dozen attempts, she missed far more times than she hit. It yielded no results.

 

She pointed at it. “I will figure you out.”

 

She reached up to turn one of the gears with her fingers and almost fell. She decided to take a short rest, the sudden heaviness of her body and her heaving breaths compelling her. She scooted down to the last step and gathered any tiles she could reach around her, not wanting to waste any time.

 

She would have to act as if this was all intended or Emma might fuss at her.

 

Not that she cared.

 

She brushed herself off and tried to sit with prim composure. She examined the ceramic slabs and the lives depicted there. She had spent the last twenty years drifting through her days, losing herself in books, considering her collections and crafting petty torments. Pursuits that only used part of her; mostly her anger or her mind.

 

Here, so much of herself pressed into each and every second; so much of her felt alive.

 

A candlemark passed before Emma re-emerged. “Hey,” she called. “So, staying was the right call. I didn’t find a way out, but we don’t have to worry about food anymore. Behind this thing they have a whole lake! A fucking fish pond, with actual fat fish. Well, small ones too, but I was more focused on the big, good eatin’ ones. And more fruit.” She twirled Taz with a flourish, the way she sometimes did when she was trying to act heroic or dashing.

 

“No monsters?”

 

“Nope.”

 

The certainty they could linger here that made her laugh in joy. “I suppose we are officially on vacation then, Captain.”

 

“Seems like it, Your Majesty.” Emma said and spun her wrist again, turning the sword in that showing off motion. “You doing okay? I figured you’d be all busy looking around.”

 

“I was patiently waiting for your assessment. Besides,” She waved her hand to her bad leg. “I am somewhat hindered at climbing over rocks and up stairs.”

 

“Okay, well, do you want to explore now or rest a bit longer?”

 

Regina should have played the demure, controlled queen. Instead, she shoved herself off the ground and hopped toward Emma as quickly as she could. “Now, please?”

 

“Sure thing, Your Majesty.”

 

Internal voices sneered and tried to badger Regina for giving into weakness. For allowing herself to lose focus. For once, she refused to listen to them.

 

She was, after all, on vacation.

 

#########################

 

Regina kept asking Emma to bring her things that were out of reach. Emma would come back with what the queen wanted and more.

 

Just as Regina knew she would.

 

In one of the large wide buildings, they found three giant metal kilns, each the width of a wagon wheel. Just as large were the ovens across the room, round openings in brick. They found pottery and a dozen multi-colored glass chalices on worktables. Murals surrounded them on each wall, colors still vivid. The image on the back wall showed many people with tools raised in defiance toward an ivory castle.

 

“Is that my mom’s — er — the castle you live in?”

 

“I think so. Long before I was queen.” She shook her head, voice soft. “There’s so much I don’t understand.” She traced her fingertips over the smooth wall. “There must be records. Perhaps in that tower.” The next painting depicted faceless men and women bent over different creations: of wood, ceramic, glass, and steel.

 

Regina could spend hours picking apart every detail and trying to determine its meaning, what the Qualsara were trying to say to her.

 

She picked up a vase, admiring the conjoining of blue and orange circles in its depths, the hints of red like the sunset. “Amazing. I’ve never seen this effect. There’s so much of our workmanship that aspires only to practicality. I understand it; people create what is functional. But I wonder how this level of mastery could be encouraged.” Regina glanced toward Emma, eyes shining until she saw the nothingness on Emma’s face, the abhorrent emptiness that clung to her no matter what. “It’s worth considering,” she said, the last few words much dimmer than the others.

 

“Maybe.  But people are always going to worry about a roof and food on the table first.”

 

“Yes, I am well aware of that.”

 

“Hey, about that tower,” Emma said, motioning behind her towards it. “Why didn’t we start there? Biggest thing in here, right?”

 

“I — I am a bit afraid to go inside.”

 

“Yeah, I only peeked inside because someone didn’t want me to go without her. And that same person wouldn’t let me tell her what I saw. I can go do a full sweep if you want. Make sure nothing is in there.”

 

“No, that’s not what I meant. I just have high expectations for the tower in particular. I’m a little afraid we won’t find half of what I hope to.”

 

Emma pressed her hand against the small of her back and stretched, wincing. Regina paused, truly seeing Emma for the first time in a long while. Her body slumped, drooping at the shoulders, her arms hanging lifelessly. It was no wonder. She had, she admitted to herself, been running Emma a bit ragged. She had also been ignoring spasms of pain in her bad leg.

 

“We should probably be fully rested before we try.”

 

Emma nodded. “Probably. Let’s get back to the main floor. Then I’ll head back to the boat and get whatever we might need.”

 

Regina, mindful now of Emma’s exhaustion, ordered herself to allow Emma to sleep for a long while before asking anything more.

 

When they were back on the first level, Regina hobbled toward a bench near the stairs. She sat carefully, mindful of her leg. The icy stone penetrated her thin dress and sank into her skin. Emma stepped closer, hand extended to catch her if she lost her balance.

 

Emma constantly watched over her, placed herself in harm’s way to protect her, showed her more thoughtfulness than anyone had in a long time.

 

She wished again she could offer something in return.

 

Except, perhaps she could.

 

That was the truth.

 

There was magic at work in Emma, and very few knew more about such things than Regina. She glanced down at her hands, usually the instruments of so much destructive power.

 

“Be right back,” Emma said.

 

“Emma? You don’t need to go right this moment.”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

“You’ll be careful? Because I still have need of you.”

 

“Promise.” Emma gave a half bow, then left her.

 

##################################

 

Emma returned with water and the last of their fruit, half-drenched, water dripping from the her gown.

 

“What happened,” Regina asked, alamed. “Did you fall?”

 

“No, I saw this thing in the water. I thought you might find it interesting. Looked like a gauntlet. I figured I could wade in and get it, but it was wedged under a pretty big rock. The rock won.”

 

 _Idiot,_ Regina thought, fondness warming her. She tried to sound stern. “Stop charging into things.”

 

Emma set everything down then collapsed on the bench beside her. “Yeah, I am beginning to think you’re right about that.”

 

Regina felt the urge to reach out to her — to soothe or connect with Emma in some way. “Emma? I appreciate that you suggested we stay here.” She meant to end things there, yet it didn’t seem enough. She awkwardly continued, “But, you give without thinking. You should stop that. You should make sure you also gain when you offer something.”

 

“You’re welcome?”

 

Regina leaned over her, pushing aside a laugh. “It’s practical advice. It would benefit you if you heeded it.”

 

Pragmatic counsel was a drop of nothing on the scales between them, a weak attempt to offer _something._

 

“Is that really what you do? You weigh everything and figure out if it’s a plus or a minus for your side?”

 

“Yes. Precisely.”

 

Emma yawned and stretched out as best she could on the bench without expelling the queen. “Too much work.”

 

“I suppose your strong suit isn’t strategic thinking.” She shifted over to try and give her more room. “The truth is that you’ve shown me more kindness than anyone has in a long time. Why?” The question reached out, intimate and honest. “I took everything from you.” Irrefutable facts shouldn’t have hurt to say, but just now, she cringed at hearing them.

 

Emma curled up on her side, her head almost touching Regina’s knee. “Not directly. The prophecy just needed a warm body, and my whole life is pretty much fallout from the war between you and my mother. The truth is that I’m probably collateral damage.”  
  
The quiet analysis of what Regina had set in motion surprised and saddened her. More harassment from the impotent gnats of conscience that never succeeded in moving her.

  
“But that was up there,” Emma said pointing. “Down here, we’ve relied on each other, and we’ve almost died a half-dozen times. For who you’ve been here...it’s right that you see this place.”

 

“And for you, it’s that simple.” She didn’t mock her; she just knew it to be the truth.

 

Emma shrugged. “It just makes sense to me. There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t. Taz has all of these speeches about what heroes are and what good means. I don’t always get it. So, there’s my code, and I figure out what seems like the right thing to do. Half the time, I don’t know if I’m getting it right. I just want to try.”

 

Above, in the real world, the queen rarely thought of anything as beautiful. She categorized instead what was valuable or useless to her. Beauty for its own sake, basking in it, held little interest.

 

Now it attacked her. This place and her companion’s foolish ideas.

 

“I’m gonna close my eyes for a few. That swim took a lot more out of me than I thought. Then maybe we can hit the tower?”

 

Not for the first time that day, Emma’s unemotional voice churned inside Regina. It distracted her from her own exhaustion.

 

“I would like that.”

 

Emma’s features relaxed and softened. Soon, her breathing evened out, chest rising and falling gently.

 

Regina leaned down, their foreheads almost touching. She made sure, as best she could, that Emma was truly asleep. “You are not collateral damage, Emma. You were chosen exactly because of who you are. I don’t know if anyone is truly good. You might be or at the very least, you’re the closest to it I’ve ever known.” She sighed, casting a look around her, the wonder of what she saw now paining her. “I know you touched me the other night when I was asleep. I know something happened when you did. And if I was someone else, I would tell you that I know. I’d try to give you even a fragment of what you have given me.”

 

She brushed a kiss to Emma’s hair; an apology. “I can’t. The kingdom is all I have. That and Henry. I can’t give surrender any advantage..”

 

She straightened and toyed with the ring on her finger. She felt the weight of the crystal crown against her hip, hanging there.

 

She raised her hand and tried to conjure a fireball. The pressure in the back of her mind let her know that her magic remained, but nothing happened. It didn’t frustrate her the way it should.

 

Not now and not here.

 

She searched her memories for the spring days when she pushed her heels to Rocinante’s sides and leaned forward into the wind, her heart fearless. She had pretended she could ride away from everything and change the world. In her youth, her heart had feasted on that dream and declared itself invincible.

 

She touched Taz’s pommel, the sword forever at Emma’s side. “Why weren’t you a better advisor to her? You should have kept her away from me. That banquet plan would never have worked. Come into my stronghold to attack me? That was the idea? You should have lured me out.”

 

She pushed to her feet and balanced on the pickaxe. She limped to the metal statue closest to her, trying to lose herself in the intricate patterns of its construction, but the pangs of her conscious did not stop.

 

“Guilt is useless,” she said to herself. The sanctity of this place coaxed the truth from her. “I wish it was just that. I wish I didn’t want to give to you.”

 

What did she know about generosity? What talent did she have for selflessness?

 

She traced the etchings of horses on her ring.

 

“Emma?” she called, her insistent voice breaking the thick quiet in the cave.

 

“Huh?” Emma groaned and turned over.

 

“Emma!”

 

Emma fell off the bench, scrambling to grab Taz at the same time. She jerked up, waved the blade before her. “What — what happened?”

 

“I tried to seduce you, did you know that? When I cut my gown to pieces. I was trying to manipulate you.”

 

Emma blinked sleep away and tried to focus. “Okay.”

 

“And now I’m cold.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“A few nights ago, I pretended to be asleep when you touched me. You sounded different. You said you didn’t want me to die and that you had to do it one last time.”

 

Emma tensed, eyes narrowing, jaw locked. “O-okay.”

 

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

 

“No?”

 

Regina closed her eyes and gathered the frayed edges of all the arguing emotions and rationales inside her. She knew what she wanted to do and she didn’t want to weigh or calculate it. Here, with this woman, she wanted to give. “I — need to ask you something.”

 


End file.
